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ULRICH YON IUTTEN, 



Imperial Ipoet anb ©rator; 



THE GREAT KNIGHTLY REFORMER OF THE 16TII CENTURY. 



TRANSLATED FROM 

CHAUFFOUR-KESTNER'S e'tUDES SUR LES REFORM ATEURS 
DU 16me SIECLE, 

BY 

ARCHIBALD YOUNG, ESQ., 

ADVOCATE. 



EDINBURGH: 
T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET. 

LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. 



MDCCCLXIII. 



SBK350 



MURRAY AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 




IE, JAMES STEPHEN remarks, in one 
of his admirable Essays on Ecclesiastical 
Biography, that - English literature is 
singularly defective in whatever relates to the Re- 
formation in Germany and Switzerland, and to the 
lives of the great men by whom it was accom- 
plished ; ' and to none of these great men does this 
observation more forcibly apply than to Ulrich von 
Hutten, of whose varied and eventful life, and 
powerful influence both upon the revival of letters 
and the reformation of religion in the sixteenth 
century, no account is to be found in our language, 
beyond the brief and imperfect notices afforded by 
magazine articles and biographical dictionaries. 
Yet scarcely any career in that stirring* century is 
more diversified by adventures, or more surrounded 
by strong elements of dramatic interest. The eldest 
son of an ancient and noble family of Franconia — 
whose knighthood was esteemed the flower of Ger- 
man chivalry — and gifted with remarkable abilities, 



4 TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 

Ulrich von Hutten might have attained to the high- 
est dignities in church or state, if he could have 
been content to follow the old paths, and accept 
the established order of things. But he preferred 
to be a champion and a martyr in the cause of civil 
and religious liberty. When a mere lad, he fled 
from the cloister of Fulda, in order to escape being 
compelled to embrace a monastic life, as he thought 
that, in some other career, he could better serve 
God and his country. Afterwards, he gave up to 
his family the estate which fell to him, as eldest 
son, on his father's death, that they might not be 
involved in the proscription and ruin which he 
was about to incur by the publication of the Trias 
Romance, — that tremendous satire upon the mani- 
fold corruptions of Rome, beside whose withering 
sarcasm and terrible invective, the attacks of About, 
and other modern assailants of the Papacy, sound 
tame and feeble. At twenty-eight, he had written 
tlieEpistolce Obscurorum virorum,the national satire of 
Germany, which, according to the celebrated Herder, 
effected for Germany incomparably more than Hu- 
dibras for England, or Gargantua for France, or the 
Knight of La Mancha for Spain. It gave the victory 
to Reuchlin over the begging friars, and to Luther 
over the court of Rome. At thirty-five he died, a 
worn-out, persecuted, destitute fugitive, on the little 
green island of Uffnau, in the Lake of Zurich,, almost 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 5 

within the shadow of the mighty Alps, — finishing 
his life and his work at an age when some of the 
world's greatest men, such as Mahomet, Luther, 
and Oliver Cromwell, had scarcely begun theirs. 
Yet in that short, but busy and fruitful life, how 
much had been accomplished, amidst poverty, per- 
secution, privations and anxieties of all kinds, and 
frequent travel ! Hutten's works amount to about 
fifty separate publications, in prose and verse, many 
of which deeply stirred the German mind, and ma- 
terially contributed to the triumph of the Reforma- 
tion over the papal power, and of polite learning- 
over the old scholastic teaching. It is surely some- 
what remarkable, that there is no life of such a 
man in the English language. There are several 
biographies of him in French ; and in German — as 
might naturally be expected — a great number, of 
which the latest and most complete is that by Dr 
Friederich Strauss. I have attempted, in some 
measure, to supply this want in our literature by 
translating M. Y. Chaffour-Kestner's life of the 
great knightly reformer of Germany, to which my 
attention was first directed when writing an article 
on Ulrich von Hutten for the ' Eclectic Review' of 
July 1858. This biography is very appropriately 
dated from Zurich, where Hutten found a last 
refuge, when all others had failed him, beside the 
intrepid and noble-minded Zwingle. It contains, 



6 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

within a brief compass, a picturesque and popular 
narrative of Hutten's chequered career ; and, as far 
as possible, makes him speak for himself, through 
the medium of those among his works which exer- 
cised the greatest influence on his era, and which 
best illustrate his character and designs. Such are 
the philippics against Ulrich, Duke of Wurtemburg, 
who had assassinated his cousin, Hans von Hutten ; 
his edition of the work of Laurentius Valla, im- 
pugning the donation of Constantine to the Holy 
See, dedicated, with characteristic audacity, to Pope 
Leo X., — a book which had a powerful influence in 
convincing Luther of the antichristian nature of the 
papal power ; the Trias Romana, the most terrible 
exposure ever made of the vices and corruptions 
of the Roman court ; the dialogues entitled, The 
Monitor and The Brigands; and the Letters to 
the Emperor Charles V., and to the Elector Fre- 
derick, the friend and protector of Luther. These 
works are largely drawn upon by M. Chauffour- 
Kestner, and his quotations from them give a vivid 
idea both of the character of Hutten and of the 
age in which he lived. Of Hutten, with his restless 
impetuosity often bordering upon rashness, his in- 
tense activity of thought and action, his disinterest- 
edness, his sincerity and love of truth, his bitter 
hatred of every form of oppression, his fervent devo- 
tion to freedom and to the fatherland; — of the age in 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 7 

which he lived, with its deeply-felt wants and aspira- 
tions, its sense of ignorance and oppression, and its 
strivings after clearer vision and healthier life. 

No man was ever more thoroughly a type, an 
epitome, of his age, than Ulrich von Hutten. Many 
phases of that age have been better represented by 
others- — its scholarship by Reuchlin and Erasmus, 
its religious reformation by Luther and Melancthon, 
its knighthood by Franz von Sickingen. But no 
one presents so many of its aspects in his single 
person as Hutten, who was at once knight, scholar, 
poet, and reformer. His marvellous activity of 
thought, and variety and fertility of invention, 
form another marked peculiarity of his genius, 
which has been finely pointed out by Von Ranke. 
c Hutten,' he says, i is not a great scholar, nor is 
he a very profound thinker; his excellence lies 
more in the exhaustlessness of his vein, which 
gushes forth with equal impetuosity, equal fresh- 
ness, in the most varied forms — in Latin and in 
German, in prose and in verse, in eloquent invective 
and in brilliant satirical dialogue. Nor is he without 
the spirit of acute observation : here and there — 
for example, in the Nemo — he soars to the bright 
and clear regions of genuine poetry. His hostilities 
have not that cold malignant character which dis- 
gusts the reader ; they are always connected with 
a cordial devotion to the side he advocates ; he 



8 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

leaves on the mind an impression of perfect vera- 
city, of uncompromising frankness and honesty ; 
above all, he has always great and single purposes 
which command universal sympathy ; he has ear- 
nestness of mind, and a passion — to use his own 
words — " for godlike truth, for common liberty." ' 

Hutten has been accused of rashness, of a revo- 
lutionary spirit, of a tendency to precipitate matters 
before t^e proper time had arrived; and perhaps 
there is some truth in this accusation. Yet it 
ought to be remembered that reformation, on the 
basis of the existing ecclesiastical institutions, was 
impracticable, and that the quiet and gradual de- 
velopment of reformation, even on the basis of the 
Bible, was no less impossible. Force, in the first 
instance, was used by Rome to prevent and arrest 
such a development, which would have been most 
agreeable to the Reformers themselves; and the 
only way to win the right of free inquiry and free 
action, was to meet force by force. The Reformers, 
before the Reformation, had tried the power of 
persuasion^ and their voices had been silenced by 
the sword and the stake. It remained to abandon 
all hope of civil and religious freedom, to submit 
for ever to the bondage of Rome, or to make use 
of the right of resistance, and, like Ulrich von 
Hutten, to draw the sword and fling away the scab- 
bard. The cause was just and holy ; and the blood 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 9 

shed to maintain it rests on the heads of those who 
strove to crush it by force, not on those who perilled 
fortune and life to secure its triumph. 

I have said that scarcely any life of the sixteenth 
century presents stronger elements of dramatic in- 
terest than that of Hutten. His early flight from 
the Abbey of Fulda ; his travels, as a poor scholar 
and student, throughout Germany and the neigh- 
bouring countries — now the guest of a peasant or 
burgher, now of a powerful noble or wealthy bishop, 
whose hospitality he repaid by his verses and by 
the charms of his conversation ; his perils from 
shipwreck and robbers ; his first journey into Italy, 
during which he was besieged in his lodgings at 
Pavia by French soldiers, and reduced to such 
straits, that he gave himself up for lost, and, like 
a true poet, composed his own epitaph ; his escape, 
and subsequent enlistment in the army of Maxi- 
milian ; his return to Germany, and publication 
of those eloquent philippics against Duke Ulrich 
of Wurtemburg, whereby he elevated his private 
wrong, in the assassination of his cousin, into an 
affair of national importance ; his second visit to 
Italy, and his combat, single-handed, against five 
Frenchmen, who had insulted Kaiser Maximilian 
and the fatherland; his coronation at Augsburg, 
as Imperial Poet and Orator, by the Emperor's own 
hand ; his brilliant services at the head of that 



10 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

noble army of scholars, the friends and followers of 
Reuchlin, who emancipated the human mind from 
the bondage of the old scholastic teaching; his 
terrible assaults upon the vices and corruptions of 
Rome ; his heroic self-abnegation in giving up his 
patrimony to his family, lest they should suffer by 
his proscription ; his friendship with Sickingen, 
and their evenings in the strong castle of Ebernberg, 
passed in reading the writings of Luther, till the 
strong hand of the Bayard of Germany grasped to 
his war-sword, and he exclaimed, c It is the cause 
of God and of truth ! It is our fatherland which 
commands us to listen to the counsels of Luther and 
of Hutten, and to defend the true faith ;' last scene 
of all, the defeat and death of Sickingen, the pro- 
scription of Hutten, his flight to Basle, Mulhausen, 
and Zurich, and his early death on the little island 
of Uffnau ; — where is the romance that possesses 
stronger or more varied elements of dramatic in- 
terest than this true story of one of the countless 
champions and martyrs of freedom ? One poet at 
least — Frolich of Aarau, in Switzerland — has felt 
this, and has composed a poem in seven cantos, 
entitled ' Ulrich von Hutten.' 

The works by which Hutten roused the national 
mind of Germany, and won the battles of freedom, 
may now lie almost forgotten on the shelves of 
libraries, as the war-swords and panoply of the 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 1 1 

knights of that age now serve only as memorials on 
the walls of armouries and arsenals. Not because 
there remain no abuses to overthrow, no enemies 
to overcome ; but because the style of our writing 
has changed, as well as the fashion of our warfare. 
Yet not the less, on that account, should we value 
the weapons with which these sixteenth century 
Reformers fought and won the great victory whose 
fruits we are now enjoying. As to Hutten him- 
self, it has been finely said by one of his German 
biographers, that ' his arrows are immortal ; and 
wherever in German lands a battle is gained against 
obscurantism and spiritual tyranny, against priest- 
craft and despotism, there have Hutten's weapons 
been.' 

I am far from holding out the work of M. Chauffour- 
Kestner as a perfect or complete biography of Ulrich 
von Hutten. But it certainly furnishes a better 
account of the great German patriot — the repre- 
sentative of the political aspect of the Reformation 
— than any to be found in the English language ; 
and I shall consider my labour in translating it 
amply repaid, if I shall succeed in inducing some 
abler writer to undertake a fuller and more com- 
plete biography of one, whose sufferings and services 
in the cause of freedom deserve to be more gene- 
rally known among us. 

Edinburgh, January 1863. 



AUTHOE'S PREFACE 




LL liberties are sisters ; or rather there is 
but one liberty, the indomitable daugh- 
ter of conscience. The progress of 
civilisation consists in disengaging liberty from the 
yoke of nature and from the yoke of institutions, 
in making of each man a man, in conquering for 
all the full and perfect exercise of their physical, 
intellectual, and moral faculties. In that divine 
progression of history, each ruin which is made in 
the ancient slavery, announces and prepares a new 
ruin. It is therefore that those who, in the sixteenth 
century, affirmed that all Christians are brothers, are 
the legitimate ancestors of those who, in the eigh- 
teenth century, declared that all men are equal. 

In that long infancy of liberty, during the ages 
of which the great battles are termed Christianity, 
Reformation, Revolution, the Reformation has had 
the honour of reclaiming and reconquering for 
liberty her very sanctuary — the conscience. But 
we need not go beyond our own time to seek for 
examples in that memorable epoch. We have 



14 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

lately seen liberty driven from the arena which 
she filled with her mighty voice : she has retired 
into her sanctuary, and from that prolific retreat 
she will emerge stronger, more serious, more 
self-assured, to march onward to new triumphs. 
Let the weak despair : it is the consequence 
and the punishment of their feebleness. But it 
must not, cannot be, that the strong themselves 
should falter and lose heart ; for liberty shall not 
perish. Who can tell all the storms to which she 
has been exposed ! How often has she been bat- 
tered by the winds, and abandoned on the waves 
like a dismasted vessel ! And ere long she again 
wooed the breeze, more beautiful and more majestic 
than ever ! But she demands from her defenders 
an undaunted spirit, a fearless heart. She despises 
the cowards who believe her dead, because they 
dare not raise her from the tomb, where they pre- 
tend that she sleeps for ever, but where she only 
slumbers for a time. She has nought to do with 
tears and lamentations : she requires deeds, and 
the fiery words which give birth to action. 

I believe that I have found such words in the 
writings of Hutten ; and I repeat them to my con- 
temporaries, happy if they cherish or rekindle in 
some hearts a spark of the sacred fire which has 
animated so many heroes. 
Zurich, 29th July 1852. 



ULEICH VON HUTTEN.* 






I. 



LRICH YON HUTTEN was born on the 
21st April 1488, of one of the noblest 
families of Franconia — of that country 
where every man was noble. From the tenth 
century the Huttens had acquired an honourable 
name in camp and council ; and at the commence- 
ment of the sixteenth, they had thirty knights in 
the service of the Empire. The Franconian nobility 
were, at that period, considered the most perfect 
type of German chivalry. They had preserved 
their independence after the formation of the terri- 
torial principalities ; and when, almost everywhere 
else, the lesser nobility had been, willingly or by 
force, subjected to the sovereignty of the princes, 
they owned allegiance only to the Empire, — that is 

* Several notes have been added by the translator, relating to the 
less generally known of the eminent persons mentioned by M. Chauf- 
four-Kestner, in order to enable the reader intelligently to follow the 
progress of the narrative without going beyond the volume in his hand. 
These notes have been placed together at the end of the volume, and 
each note is indicated by its number on the page to which it refers. 



16 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

to say, to an idea rather than to a reality. They 
formed a sort of noble democracy, which properly 
took its place by the side of the middle class 
democracy of the towns, and which, not less than 
the latter, was pervaded by a remarkable spirit of 
liberty, joined to a profound sentiment of national 
unity. 

The castle of Steckelberg, the residence of the 
Huttens, was situated some leagues distant from 
Fulda, on the confines of Franconia and Hesse. 
It was one of the feudal residences of which Hutten 
has left us the description : ' Our castles are con- 
structed, not for pleasure, but security. All is 
sacrificed to the necessity of defence. They are 
contracted between ramparts and ditches ; ar- 
mouries and stables usurp the place of apartments. 
Everywhere the smell of powder, horses, cattle, the 
noise of dogs and oxen, and, upon the margin of 
the mighty forests which surround us, the cries of 
wolves. Always agitation ; perpetual coming and 
going : our gates, open to all, often permit assassins 
and thieves to enter. Each day there is a new 
care. If we maintain our independence, we risk 
being crushed among too powerful enemies ; if we 
put ourselves under the protection of some prince, 
we are forced to espouse his quarrels. We cannot 
sally forth without an escort. In order to hunt, or 
to visit a neighbour, we must don casque and 



THE SCHOOL OF THE ABBEY OF FULDA. 17 

cuirass. Always, everywhere, war.' War, in fact, 
even to the end, was the normal state of feudal 
society. Hutten, as we shall see, did not detest it ; 
but he wished it to be ennobled by its aim, and by 
the grandeur of the results achieved. 




II. 



E know nothing of the infancy of Hutten ; 
but we can fancy what it must have been, 
in the midst of the savage manners of 
which we have just sketched the picture. At 
eleven years of age, his parents sent him to the 
school of the Abbey of Fulda. They had four sons ; 
and, although Ulrich was the eldest, they thought 
that he would best make his way in the world by 
the convent, as he was of delicate constitution, and 
of short stature in that family of giants. Hutten 
learned with ardour and success all that they could 
teach him in the celebrated school of the Abbey, 
and especially the rudiments of the classical lan- 
guages ; but he acquired no taste for a monastic 
life. ' Having seen the world ' (he says at a subse- 
quent period), ' it appeared to me that, in another 
condition, I could live in a manner more pleasing 
to God, and more useful to men.' Thenceforward, 

B 



18 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 

with that decisive and courageous resolution which 
does not compound with duty, his mind was made 
up. Nothing could induce him to become a monk. 
He was emboldened in his resistance by his fellow- 
student, Crotus Rubianus (1), who remained his 
friend, and by Eitelwolf von Stein (2), who was his 
most useful protector. The latter addressed him- 
self at first to the parents of the young man, and 
entreated them not to force his inclinations. He 
found them deaf to entreaties, and, conjecturing the 
cause of their resistance, he went to the Abbot of 
Fulda, and addressed him in the following terms : 
' Are you not ashamed to destroy so promising a 
genius?' The experienced statesman had already 
divined in the youthful scholar the great man of 
the future ; but the monk had made the same dis- 
covery, and was not less ardent in his efforts to 
secure him. He endeavoured to dazzle his eyes by 
the dignities and honours which a monastic career 
would place within his reach. Hutten remained 
immovable. He had then recourse to menaces ; 
but these only rendered Hutten the more deter- 
mined. Then the Abbot called in his parents. 
The father laid his commands upon him, and swore 
that, if he did not obey, he would see him no more : 
the mother wept and entreated. But the loyalty 
of young Hutten's nature forbade him to sacrifice 
the instinctive dictates of his conscience either to 



FLIGHT FROM THE ABBEY OF FULDA. 19 

ambition or fear, or to the natural affections, which 
were always so strong in his heart. To escape 
from further persecutions, he fled from Fulda. He 
was then sixteen years old. 

Bitter but salutary initiation into the great 
battle of life ! Later, other seductions will be 
tried, other dangers will threaten him ; but in that 
first temptation he acquired the necessary strength 
of character. After what he then suffered, it will 
cost him nothing to remain faithful to the voice of 
conscience. His family for a long time was lost to 
him. His father no longer wished either to see him, 
or to interest himself in his affairs. 




III. 

N leaving the Abbey, Hutten at first went 
to Erfurth, where he might see Luther ; 
but he soon afterwards repaired to 
Cologne, where he was rejoined by his friend 
Crotus Rubianus. Cologne was the most ancient 
and illustrious of the German universities ; and the 
two youths arrived there, full of ardour in the pur- 
suit of knowledge. 

Knowledge! But what kind of knowledge? 
The scholastic system still reigned supreme ; and 



20 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

dialectics were the first branch of study to which 
they applied themselves. ' We learn to fulminate 
arguments, to overwhelm each other with syllogistic 
strokes, to maintain up to thirty propositions, to 
prove the for and against.' Futile and wretched 
training, which, instead of exercising and rectifying 
the intellect, perverted it, and sent it forth on a 
wrong path ! However, that study was not lost : 
the scholar, later in life, will avail himself of the 
teaching of his masters, in his great and triumph- 
ant controversy with the theologians of Cologne. 

But the natural integrity of his disposition did 
not permit Hutten to stray long in these devious 
paths. He soon yielded to the inclination which 
led him towards classical antiquity. He was the 
assiduous and favourite pupil of Ragius iEsticam- 
pius (3), who, in opposition to the old science of 
the Scholastics, taught, with great success, the new 
science of languages and ancient literature. It was 
the invincible tendency of the epoch. The time 
was approaching when the human spirit would 
burst the swaddling clothes which had protected its 
infancy, but which had for a long time impeded 
its growth and development. In order to prepare 
for this decisive struggle against the iron slavery of 
the Middle Ages, the modern world sought its best 
arms in classical antiquity. What, in truth, could 
they do better than invoke the calm and clear 



HUTTEN AND KAGIUS iESTTCAMPIUS. 21 

reason of the Greeks, the practical good sense of 
the Romans, against that mass of subtleties, of 
shadows which obscured the light ? 

But the old world, the old science, were not will- 
ing to give place. We shall afterwards see what 
blows it was necessary to strike, in order to achieve 
for classical learning a little air and liberty. The 
theologians of Cologne launched against Ragius the 
accusation which was fatal to Socrates, the eternal 
accusation with which all science is met at its first 
appearance. They accused him of being an innova- 
tor, a corrupter of youth, and expelled him from 
the University. Later, we shall find them again 
animated by the same passions ; but the times will 
be changed, and their blind hatred will shatter it- 
self against the holy league of good sense, of learn- 
ing, and of wit. 

Ragius carried his teaching to Frankfort-on-the- 
Oder, where the Margrave of Brandenburgh was 
about to found a university. Hutten followed him. 
He was appointed one of the first masters, and re- 
quited by his earliest poem the hospitality which 
he received. 



22 ULRICH VON HUTTEN, 

IV. 




j|ROM 1506 to 1514, Ulrich von Hutten 
only appears at long intervals. He set 
out on his travels in order to finish his 
education. Like Ulysses, to whom his contem- 
poraries have often compared him, he had to endure 
the buffe tings of the waves, the treachery of men, 
and the persecutions of a contrary destiny. He 
first visited the north of Europe ; later, he appears 
at Rostock, at Wittemberg, at Vienna, sowing 
broad-cast on his way much admired poetical com- 
positions. These travels, undertaken without re- 
sources, were often full of great hardships. On the 
Baltic, he was exposed to a frightful tempest ; in 
Pomerania, in that country of the Cyclops, as one of 
his friends says, he was robbed of his slender bag- 
gage. He travelled in the style of knights-errant — 
or as the students of Germany have done for so 
long a period — trusting to chance, on foot, living on 
alms, without anxiety or thought for the future, 
certain of always finding some abbot, or lover of 
good verses, or the hospitable table of a peasant. 
Sometimes the charms of his conversation procured 
for him a flattering reception. At Olmutz, for 
example, the Bishop, after having lodged him for 
several days, and treated him magnificently, gave 
him, on his departure, a horse and some money. 



ADVENTURES IN ITALY. 23 

Iii 1512, Hutten was at Pavia, at the time when 
the French defended that town, besieged by the 
Swiss. His sojourn there was, for our hero, a suc- 
cession of misfortunes. Having got into a quarrel 
with some soldiers of the garrison, he had to endure 
from them, in his small student's lodging, a siege 
in form. He gave up all hope, prepared to die as 
became a poet, and composed a beautiful epitaph 
for himself in Latin. When the town was taken, 
he expected to have been set free ; but the victors, 
pretending to take him for a German in the ser- 
vice of France, under that pretext, maltreated and 
plundered him. He hastened to fly from that 
unhappy town, and took refuge at Bologna. 
Misery, however, seemed to dog his steps ; and his 
necessities became so pressing, that he enlisted as 
a common soldier in Maximilian's army. l If I were 
to tell you what I suffered in Italy ' (he afterwards 
says to his friend Perckheimer (4) ), l you would 
hear a tragedy so wonderful and melancholy, that 
you would scarcely believe me.' This, however, 
did not hinder him from making verses in honour 
of the Empire, and against its enemies. On his re- 
turn, his friends pressed him to dedicate them to 
Maximilian : he did so, but in so haughty a tone, 
that it was impossible to mistake him for a courtier. 

He derived no advantage either from the verses 
or the dedication ; but Eitelwolf von Stein recom- 



24 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

mended him to the Archbishop of Mayence, Albert 
of Brandenburg, who received and treated him as a 
friend. He composed a poem in his honour, which 
is considered one of his best works in Latin verse. 
He allowed it to be printed only at the request of 
his patron, and with marked repugnance. ' If I 
could refuse you anything, certainly I would not 
have consented to that. You know to what risk I 
expose myself. You know the ideas and the 
customs of the German nobility : one would take 
them for centaurs rather than knights. If a young 
man applies himself to the study of the sciences, 
they point at him the finger of scorn, as a degene- 
rate being, as a disgrace to his family and nobility. 
Thus several who were making good progress have 
turned back, and have bowed the neck to the yoke 
of prejudice. Are we not condemned each day to 
hear these centaurs exclaim that they are the 
pillars of the country, that in them alone is true 
nobility, and that they alone are qualified for great 
exploits both in peace and war ? ' 

I take notice of that first expression of a com- 
plaint which often recurs in the writings of Hutten. 
He reproaches the German nobility with their 
coarseness, drunkenness, and contempt for the arts 
and sciences. One object of his ambition was to 
combat and destroy that prejudice of the nobility, 
which considered the cultivation of literature as a 



HUTTEN'S ESTIMATE OF NOBILITY. 25 

mark of low birth. Every noble of the sixteenth 
century was proud of his nobility; Hutten often 
speaks with complaisance of the distinction of his 
family; but from a feeling then entirely new, he 
was still more proud of personal distinction : ' I 
attach little importance' (he writes to Perckheimer) 
1 to the nobility which arises merely from the acci- 
dent of birth, and with "which there is combined no 
personal merit. For my part, I would wish to 
ennoble myself, and to transmit to my descendants 
some distinction which I have not inherited from 
my ancestors.' 



V. 




E approach the period when Hutten, re- 
turned from his long travels, is about to 
commence his work. Unhappy, a wan- 
derer on the face of the earth, shattered by mis- 
fortunes, attacked by a shameful disease from 
which he will suffer all his life, and which will 
hasten his death, what has he learned ? One great 
thing — experience. He has examined the world 
closely : he knows its passions, its wants, its vices, 
its great aspirations. He knows that, from the 
north to the south, it is in expectation, and await- 
ing only an impulse. He knows the spell which 



26 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

will arouse it. He has suffered : he will take part 
with those who suffer. He has studied on the spot 
the secrets of the Roman tyranny : he will smite it 
to the heart. At the same time, he has developed 
his intellectual capacities : he remains a poet, but 
he has become a learned man ; he has acquired a 
perfect acquaintance with the marvels of Greek 
and Latin genius brought to light at the Renais- 
sance. His verses everywhere make for him ad- 
mirers and friends. Young men set out to listen 
to him, on the vague report that he has commenced 
a course of instruction. He occupies one of the 
highest positions among the learned men of that 
learned century. And his knowledge is not the 
dead knowledge of books and vain formulas ; it is 
the instrument of liberation. That spirit of liberty 
which had pervaded his character from his in- 
fancy, which his earliest struggles had increased in 
him, and which had been the most ardent senti- 
ment of his adventurous youth, he brought back 
enlarged, enlightened, purified by meditation and 
travel. To this he added a fervent love of his 
country, and a passionate faith in the grandeur of 
the mission which he had to fill in the world. 
Than him, none had more pride of nationality, or 
deeper hatred of all foreign rule. What shocks and 
revolts him in the pontifical power, as a free Chris- 
tian, is the yoke which it imposes on the conscience ; 



PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER. 27 

but, at the same time, and chiefly, it is the empire 
which it pretends to exercise over Germany. Thus, 
though he neglects not to pierce, with his best 
directed and most poignant sarcasms, the unheard- 
of corruptions of the Roman court, he may with 
good reason be reckoned the representative of the 
political aspect of the Reformation, just as Luther 
— whom he preceded arid encouraged in the struggle 
— is the special representative of its religious aspect. 
Hutten was of short stature ; his body was bent 
by disease, and by the hardships of his youth. 
But his expressive countenance, his sparkling eyes, 
told immediately all the feelings of his soul. His 
enemies were often terrified at the tremendous 
energy which appeared in that lofty countenance ; 
while his friends read in it only the nobleness and 
generosity of his intellect and heart. His character 
was exceedingly amiable, without hauteur, without 
pretension, full of readiness to oblige, and of kind 
attentions to women and children, and for the 
humblest of mankind. During his happiest years^ 
Budgeus (5) praises in him these amiable qualities ; 
and Zwingle bestows on him the same praise, at the 
end of his life, when so many misfortunes and de- 
ceptions might well have embittered his spirit. 
His wit, nourished by serious studies, enlarged by 
an attentive observation of men and things, had an 
irresistible charm : it sparkled in refined remarks, 



28 



ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 



in curious comparisons, in unexpected sallies. All 
the learned and distinguished men of his time were 
his friends, and remained so. One only — Eras- 
mus (6) — betrayed him in his last hour ; but Eras- 
mus, enamoured of a quiet life, betrayed less the 
man than the unfortunate. 

Such was Hutten, when a tragical event threw 
him into the midst of the strifes of his time. 



VI. 




E learned at the same time the death of 
his friend and protector, Eitelwolf von 
Stein, and the assassination of his cousin, 
Hans von Hutten, by the Duke of Wurtemberg. 
To the first he gave a touching and tender regret ; 
to the second, a memorable vengeance. 

The Huttens had rendered important services to 
the Duke of Wurtemberg. In a revolt of the pea- 
santry, they had given him the victory by leading the 
Franconian nobility to his aid. They believed them- 
selves sure of his friendship, and he made warm 
protestations of gratitude. He requested of old 
Ludwig von Hutten that he would confide to him 
his son, who was accounted the most accomplished 
knight of Franconia. He held out the most brilliant 



ASSASSINATION OF H. VON HUTTEN. 29 

inducements, saying that he wished, in the person of 
this young man, to requite the obligations which he 
owed to the family. The youthful Hutten hesitated 
long, as if he had had a presentiment of his fate ; 
but the father thought it his duty not to let slip the 
opportunity which fortune placed before his son. 

The Duke overwhelmed the young knight with 
favours, and kept him constantly at his side ; while 
the latter gave himself up with delight to the 
enchantments of that court life, where, by a rare 
good fortune, he enjoyed at once the friendship of 
the prince, and the good-will of the nobles and 
people. He was soon attached to the country by 
a closer and softer tie ; he married the daughter of 
the Marshal of Wurtemberg. 

After some months of unmingled happiness, he 
learned from his wife herself that she was beloved 
by the Duke. That information struck him like a 
thunderbolt. He rushed to the presence of the 
Duke, with the agony of outraged friendship, rather 
than with the resentment of an injured husband. 
He reproached him with his passion, and entreated 
him to combat it ; but the Duke, in the delirium of 
desire, threw himself at his feet, and did not blush 
to ask him to sanction his love for his wife, per- 
mitting him in return to aspire to the favours of 
the Duchess. The young noble repulsed with con- 
tempt this infamous bargain. From that time his 



30 ULRICH YON HUTTEN. 

resolution was taken to quit the court, and to with- 
draw his wife from attempts, in which, as yet, he 
did not know her complicity. 

After long delays, caused by the opposition of the 
Duke, his departure was fixed, when he was invited 
to a farewell hunting party. He joined the Duke 
without mistrust, and without arms. The Duke 
was armed. He gave the young man a most flat- 
tering reception, and attached him to his side in 
order to converse with him more familiarly. They 
soon became separated from the rest of the court ; 
and upon arriving in the heart of the forest, where 
two horses could not ride abreast, the Duke made 
the unhappy young man go before him. Sud- 
denly he threw himself upon him from behind, and 
ran him through the body with his sword, not 
ceasing from his murderous attack until he had 
given him seven mortal wounds. Then — adding 
cowardly outrage to crime — he loosed the belt of 
the dead man, fastened it round his neck, and hung 
him up to a tree. On regaining his escort with 
haggard eyes and blood-stained hands, he informed 
them that, in virtue of his right as a free judge, he 
had taken vengeance on an adulterer ! 

The fatal news spread rapidly through Germany, 
and roused a universal feeling of horror. Every- 
where the Duke met indignation and contempt; 
but, as if he believed himself above punishment, he 



ATTACKS DUKE OF WURTEMBERG. 31 

paraded his crime, and lived publicly with the wife 
of his victim (7). 




VII. 

UTTEN was at the baths of Ems when he 
learned from a friend this frightful crime. 
His first feeling was grief, and sympathy 
with the bereaved father ; but he determined not 
to shed useless tears, and resolved to pursue the 
criminal until punishment should overtake him. 

With this view he hastened to reconcile himself 
with his father, and then took up the cause of the 
family. Letters, .poems, orations, were in turns 
employed by him to rouse Germany against the 
tyrant. He fulminated against him five harangues, 
five philippics full of wrath and vigour. He im- 
parted to Latin, to that dead language, all the life 
of his ardent soul. He does not disguise the passion 
which animates him ; he gives himself up to all its 
vehemence, and all its coarseness. He demands of 
the princes the judgment and punishment of the 
criminal, and does not conceal from them, that if 
they refuse, the Huttens will know right well how 
to do justice to themselves. 

' Know, princes' (he exclaims), 'what will be 
thought of you if you abandon our cause. The 



32 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

whole German people will be animated with a just 
indignation : they will curse your pride, your hard- 
ness of heart ; they will deem you accomplices in 
the crime which you have neglected to punish. 
Your honour is at stake ; reflect well on this. They 
will say that this man is your peer — this man, who 
ought to be placed beyond the pale of human com- 
munion. Let justice do her office, and do not con- 
strain us to have recourse to force. As to myself, 
nothing shall make me endure such an injury : I 
shall renounce only with life the pursuit of that 
great criminal. These are the feelings of all my 
kindred ; and how many others share in them ! If 
you abandon us, it will only remain to take up arms; 
and then what will become of Germany ? At least 
she will know that we are not to blame for these 
misfortunes, that we have done everything to obtain 
justice, and that we have given the signal of war 
in spite of ourselves, and constrained by your de- 
sertion.' 

In these orations Hutten appeared as the avenger 
of an outraged family ; and, as has been said of him, 
he prosecuted a true vendetta. But these orations 
have a still greater importance in his life : they 
revealed to Germany, and perhaps to himself, the 
politician, as well as the great writer. Hutten 
made a national cause of his own private wrong, 
and raised it to the importance of an affair of state. 



ATTACKS DUKE OF WURTEMBERG. 33 

At the outset, he recalls the services which the 
Huttens have rendered to the Duke of Wurtemberg ; 
and here is how he treats that first revolt of the 
Swabian peasantry : — 

' A conspiracy had been formed against him. 
The peasantry could no longer support his tyranny, 
his imposts, his rapacity, his extortions of every 
description ! How would Germany have been con- 
vulsed ! What perils, princes, would have menaced 
you, through the fault of a single individual, if 
that contagion had been allowed to spread ! For, 
although at first their demands were but too just, 
evil counsellors crept in among them, and corrupted 
their original designs. All the scoundrels enlisted 
in their ranks, and thenceforward there was no 
diversity of opinion about massacring the nobility, 
plundering the rich, and overthrowing everything. 
Such was the danger that menaced Germany. The 
Franconian knights, sent by Ludwig von Hutten, 
saved Germany : they saved the Duke, but they 
could not cure the vices which would lead anew to 
similar convulsions ! ' 

Undoubtedly, this appreciation of the rising of 
the German peasantry is not that with which 
history will agree. She will have more sympathy 
for these poor wretches, who only rose against an 
intolerable yoke, and fought valiantly around the 
iron-shod shoe (Bundschuh), which served them 



34 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 

for a standard. But she will not deny that acts of 
violence and atrocity sullied a cause just in itself; 
and, even while taking the part of the ignorant, she 
will bow herself before the first impartial judgment 
pronounced by a noble upon that great popular 
movement. 

Hutten afterwards narrates the crime, and de- 
mands the punishment of the criminal. ' You owe 
it to the honour of your country ; you owe it to 
yourselves, Swabians. It is time to throw off the 
yoke of that execrable tyrant ! No ! believe not 
that our knights can attempt to protect that man, 
to assist his abominable passions. We are armed 
less against you, than for Germany ; and if we had 
been able, we would have saved you all. His vio- 
lence, his tyranny, are not imputable to us ; they 
are the crimes of his own individual wickedness. 
And who have suffered from them more than we 
have ? His impunity has encouraged him in fresh 
crimes. He believes that he may do anything : he 
has confiscated your goods, destroyed your houses, 
killed your best citizens. There is a great reason 
for inflicting upon him an exemplary punishment. 
Germany knows but too well what would be the 
results of his impunity ! ' 

To these orations Hutten added a dialogue, 
entitled Phalarismus. It is the meeting of Phalaris 
and the Duke of Wurtemberg in hell. Phalaris 



THE PHALARISMUS. 35 

congratulates himself on seeing a man his equal in 
cruelty. He gives him, however, some good lessons 
in tyranny : — 

■ Above all, liberate your soul from the fear of 
God, and from every feeling of humanity. The 
better and more virtuous a man is, the more you 
will suspect him as an* enemy, and will hasten to 
get rid of him : in this way you will make yourself 
feared. At the same time, you will take care to 
attach some followers by your generosity : they 
will chant your praises among the people. Be pro- 
fuse to them, without thinking of counting the 
money which you have taken from the rest. One 
great thing is to have good spies, who will bring 
you an exact account of what is said, thought, and 
done. Whatever you may do, arrange it so as to 
give a creditable appearance to your acts ; so that, 
if they do not see you do good, they may at least 
have no certain proof that you do evil. Often, you 
must even do something just, noble, and courage- 
ous. There is one great point : do not forget it. 
A single good action, well proved, will efface the 
remembrance of many crimes. In particular, direct 
all the penetration of your intellect to discern those 
whom you ought to fear, and those whom you can 
seduce. And if, in spite of all, you find yourself in 
some great danger, there remains to you a last re- 
sort, often attempted in Germany, never well exe- 



36 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 

cuted : gain over the populace by summoning them 
to the destruction of the rich. As to your pleasures, 
if you happen to love a woman, and her husband 
refuses to give her up, get rid of the insolent, but 
secretly. Such are the rules of tyranny; if that 
Syracusan had followed them, he would not have 
fallen from a tyrant to a schoolmaster.' 

These writings made an immense impression in 
Germany. The Emperor, however, hesitated to 
punish a prince; and it was not until 1519 that 
vengeance overtook the criminal. Put to the ban 
of the Empire, he was hunted from Wurtemberg by 
the indignant people, assisted by an army which 
Franz von Sickingen (8) commanded, and in which 
Hutten served. It was in this campaign that the 
friendship of these two knights commenced. 

I do not intend to follow the details of that war ; 
but I must specially mention one event, connected 
with it, which had an incalculable influence upon 
the life of Hutten. He had made himself master of 
the political affairs of Germany ; he had studied, to 
assist his vengeance, all their springs. His voice 
had made itself heard beyond the little circle of 
philosophers who, up to that time, had alone ap- 
preciated its power : it had gone forth to the people, 
and re-echoed through the whole nation. His name 
was associated in the popular imagination with the 
sad story which affected him so strongly :. he had 



THE SCHOLASTICS AND HUMANISTS. 37 

his place in the tragedy. At the same time, he had 
viewed princes close at hand : he knew their am- 
bitions, their cabals, and how the Emperor, the 
venerated representative of national unity, had 
in reality but little power. He understood one 
of the evils of Germany. He had had a glimpse 
of the other "in his travels, and soon he will 
study it better at Rome herself. But, previously, 
he will fight his first great battle against religious 
fanaticism, and obtain one of his most brilliant 
triumphs. 






VIII. 

HE natural opposition of the Scholastics 
and the Humanists could not fail to re- 
sult in an open war. In truth, the 
question at issue between them, related to nothing 
of less importance than the empire over the souls 
of men, the direction of their intellects, the substi- 
tution of a new moral world for that which was old 
and worn out. That final strife, however, burst 
forth in an unexpected manner; for when ques- 
tions have been mentally decided, the most trivial 
incident rouses them, with intense force, into 
action. 



38 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

One of the most moderate and timid among the 
adherents of the new method gave the signal for 
that memorable combat. John Reuchlin (9) was a 
learned man, rather than an original or sympathetic 
intellect : his spirit lacked boldness ; his style, 
warmth and brilliancy ; but he possessed the pas- 
sion for learning in the highest degree. Wherever 
there were any crumbs fallen from the table of the 
masters to be picked up — to use his own words — 
there he hastened to proceed. At Paris, in the 
Vatican, at Florence, and at Basle, he had reaped 
an ample harvest; and he hastened to call the 
world to partake with him. He did incontestable 
service to the cause of Latin literature by the 
publication of a dictionary, and to that of Greece 
by the publication of a small grammar. He spared 
neither trouble nor money to procure editions of 
the ancient authors, either in MS., or as they were 
issued from the printing-presses of Italy. He was 
the first German who possessed a complete edition 
of Homer. But his insatiable curiosity did not 
confine itself to classical antiquity : he turned his 
attention also to the study of Hebrew. t No one 
before me ' (he affirms with legitimate pride) l had 
known how to combine in a single volume the 
grammatical rules of the Hebrew language ; and, 
in despite of envy, I am and remain the first. 
Exegi monumentum cere perennius.'' With a view of 



DISPUTE ABOUT HEBREW LITERATURE. 39 

improving himself in this study, he had become 
intimate with several rabbis, by whom he was 
initiated into the mysteries of the Kabbala. But 
it was not from that quarter that the storm arose 
which disturbed him in his learned labours. 

Pfefferkorn, a converted Jew, had published a 
book, in which, with the fanaticism of a neophyte, 
he accused his ancient co-religionists of adoring the 
sun and moon, and of insulting Christianity in the 
most odious manner. That book was welcomed as 
a special piece of good fortune by the theologians 
of Cologne, and especially by Hochstraten, Prior of 
the Dominicans, and Inquisitor for the three eccle- 
siastical electorates. They represented the Jewish 
books as dangerous and heretical, and demanded of 
the Emperor an order to burn them. Maximilian 
had no objection to this literary auto dafe; but his 
councillors, many of whom belonged to the modern 
school, and who all detested the Inquisition, con- 
sidered it advisable to consult the Faculties of 
Theology, and the most learned men in Hebrew 
literature. The theologians of Cologne had no 
hesitation in ranging themselves on the side of 
Hochstraten. They drew up a memorial, in which 
they endeavoured to establish, with much show of 
learning, the startling proposition that the Jews 
were heretics, and that, as such, it was the 
Emperor's right and duty to punish them. The 



40 ULE1CH YON HUTTEN. 

Faculties of Paris, Erfurth, Louvain, and Mayence, 
were, as might be expected, of the same opinion ; 
but Reuchlin adopted the opposite view of the 
question, and all independent and enlightened men 
were of his opinion. 

He had been consulted by the Archbishop of 
Mayence, and had answered with remarkable 
moderation. He pointed out that many Jewish 
books could not but be very useful to Christianity ; 
that the greater number took no notice of it ; and 
that, consequently, if it was absolutely necessary 
to burn, a selection, at least, should be made. 
That moderation was a crime in the eyes of the 
fanatics. The memorial of Reuchlin, destined for 
the eyes of the Archbishop of Mayence alone, was, 
in some unknown manner, communicated to Pfef- 
ferkorn, and to the theologians of Cologne. They 
attacked it immediately with the utmost violence. 
Reuchlin replied. His answer was burned. He 
published a second, and was forthwith cited to 
appear before the Inquisition. 

The moment was decisive. It was essential for 
the Dominicans to strengthen their authority, 
always disputed, and definitively to establish the 
Inquisition in the heart of that German land which 
repulsed it with horror. For the innovators, it was 
equally essential to conquer liberty and safety. 

It was then a war to the death, and every one 



TRIUMPH OF THE HUMANISTS. 41 

felt it to be so. The established authorities did all 
in their power to prevent a strife which might 
draw all into its vortex. The Inquisition having 
assembled at Mayence in 1513, the Archbishop 
ordered it to dissolve. The Pope remitted the 
affair to the Bishop of Spire, who condemned the 
accusers of Reuchlin. 

But the theologians did not account themselves 
vanquished. They burned anew the writings of 
Reuchlin. The foreign Faculties also did so, espe- 
cially that of Paris, although public opinion in 
France was loud against that excess of intolerance. 
Fortified by such support, Hochstraten turned to 
the Pope, and set out for Rome, accompanied by 
a numerous suite, and furnished with a large sum of 
money, there to plead the cause of the old theology 
against the Humanists. The Pope was greatly em- 
barrassed. How could he acquit Reuchlin without 
injuring those powerful Universities, true pillars 
of the church, and those religious orders, whose 
assistance was so necessary for the sale of indul- 
gences ? And how condemn him, without raising 
a storm, whose results no one could foresee ? He 
suspended the cause ; but, in reality, the Humanists 
had conquered. 



42 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 



IX. 




UTTEN celebrated the victory even before 
it had been achieved, so confident was 
he in the strength of the new school. 

The Triumphus Capnionis — Capnio was the 
learned name of Reuchlin — is one of the most re- 
markable of Hutten's writings. After the enlogy 
of the victor, as in ancient triumphs, he makes for 
him a train of vanquished foes. He is full of wild 
energy. He depicts in glowing colours the corrup- 
tion of the enemies of all truth, of all liberty, their 
ignorance, their superstition, their barbarism. He 
paints their portraits ; as, for example, that of the 
Inquisitor, Hochstraten : — 

' Are God or religion spoken of? On a sudden he 
cries out, To the fire ! to the fire ! Does one write 
some book? To the fire with the book and the 
author ! Do you speak truth ? To the fire ! Do 
you utter falsehood ? To the fire ! Do you act 
justly ? To the fire ! Do you commit injustice ? 
To the fire ! He is all over fire : he breathes fire ; 
he lives on fire ! To the fire ! to the fire ! such is 
his first and his last word.' 

In this poem the satire does not smile. It is the 
first cry of an indignant conscience. It is violent, 
even brutal. Later, Hutten will be more measured 



TRIUMPH US CAPNIONIS. 43 

in the form of his writings, but not less cutting; 
he will avail himself of the nimble weapon of 
ridicule. On this occasion he is armed with 
the lash and the mace, and crushes and over- 
whelms his antagonists. Let us mark well this 
first appearance of Hutten upon the field of battle, 
which he will leave no more. Here is his procla- 
mation : — 

' Gird up your loins, Theologians, and take to 
flight. More than twenty of us have conspired for 
your exposure and ruin. We owe it to the inno- 
cence of Capnio, to your own wickedness, to the 
republic of letters. We owe it to the religion 
which you have wrapped in darkness, and on 
which we have poured the light. Jerome has re- 
appeared : the Gospel has seen the day. A num- 
ber of Greek and Latin authors have been pub- 
lished. Everywhere there is ardent working ; and 
you, what do you do ? By what right do you 
usurp the title of theologians, you who have re- 
duced that noble science to a repetition of vain 
prating, of sterile and verbose follies and senilities ? 
You only know how to persecute those to whom 
we owe so many wonders. Many are arraying their 
ranks to oppose you. I enter the first into the 
lists, not because I am the most skilful, but because 
I am the most eager. Come on, then, conspirators, 
to the work ! to the work ! Our chains are broken ! 



44 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 

The die is cast ! * To fall back is impossible ! No ! 
the Turks are not more odious than these men ! 
But Germany has now her eyes opened ; the veil 
has fallen ; she sees you at full length ! You have 
reigned too long, owing to some fatal destiny, or 
to the crimes of those who have endured it. What 
Pope so unjust as to impose that yoke upon us ! 
and what Emperor so cowardly as to submit to it ! 
But you have conspired against Capnio in good 
time. Germany could no longer remain under an 
illusion when she saw you attack such a man. She 
felt that her honour had been made sport of ! She 
has raised herself as one man to defend it ! Re- 
joice then with me, fellow-countrymen; but let 
that victory, so hard to win, learn you at the same 
time where your forbearance should stop ! ' 



X. 

LMOST at the same time as the Triumph 
of Capnio, appeared that powerful satire, 
known as ' Epistoloe Obscurorum virorumj 
which struck so deadly a blow at monastic estab- 
lishments and at the Papacy. The plot is very 

1 This is the first time that I meet with the expression, which will 
afterwards become the motto of Hutten. 




EPISTOL^ OBSCUEOEUM VIEOEUM. 45 

simple : they are letters, supposed to be written 
chiefly by monks and theologians — but a few by 
jurists and doctors — to Ortuinus Gratus, who, along 
with Hochstraten and Tunger (10), stood at the head 
of the persecutors of Reuchlin. Written in the bad 
Latin which at that time was the usual language 
of the monks, these letters display the peculiar 
phraseology and vulgarisms characteristic of the 
last representatives of Scholasticism. They unveil, 
with a simplicity full of tact and cleverness, the 
secret history of the mendicant orders, their vices, 
their hatred of all serious instruction, their ignorance, 
their plots against Reuchlin and the Humanists. 
1 That composition' (says Herder, cited by a bio- 
grapher of Hutten) i strikes so truly, depicts so 
faithfully, Pfefferkorn and Ortuinus, and all their 
spawn, that we find them there just as God had 
made them. It is a national satire, full of fire, wit, 
and a marvellous exactitude of detail. Do not ob- 
ject, fastidious critics, to the name of pamphlet ; 
all true and lively satire is a pamphlet. The more 
a pamphlet is general, and at the same time telling, 
the more it is worth. And the pamphlet in ques- 
tion struck far and truly. The lukewarm satire, 
which is neither fish nor flesh, has never done any 
good. Hutten's satire has been very useful, and 
why ? It was entirely true. It had life and truth, 
like all that he has ever written.' (11.) 



46 ULKICH VON HUTTEN. 

And, in reality, the great excellence of this book 
is its truth, — so much so, that those whom it over- 
whelmed with ridicule, took it at first for a serious 
production. ' It is interesting to observe,' writes 
Sir Thomas More to Erasmus, ' how much the 
Epistolce Obscurorum virorum please both the learned 
and unlearned. When the latter see us laughing 
at them, they fancy that we laugh only at the style, 
which they do not attempt to defend ; but under 
that somewhat barbarous language, say they, what 
an abundance of excellent maxims ! It is a pity 
that the book has not another title : it would take 
a hundred years before these imbeciles would com- 
prehend to what an extent they have been taken in.' 
Erasmus also relates that, in Brabant, a Dominican 
prior bought a great many copies of the work, to 
present to his superiors, under the belief that it 
had been written in praise of their order ! (12.) Be- 
hold the Atlases who believe themselves destined 
to uphold a falling church !' 

This satire, the most perfect specimen of that 
species of writing in the German language, recalls 
in more than one point our immortal Memppee. 
It recalls to memory the great name of Voltaire. 
Like the work of that able man, it has spirit, 
vivacity, occasionally too great liberty of language, 
cutting and relentless personality; and, lastly, a 
wit which hides all. Its ridicule springs from the 



EPISTOLiE OBSCURORUM VIRORUM. 47 

same source ; it usually attacks the same objects, 
the histories of apocryphal saints and of imaginary 
relics. It ridicules, for example, as Voltaire has 
somewhere done, I believe, the legend of these 
three kings of Cologne, who were, perhaps, three 
Westphalian peasants. Finally, it delights to seek 
in the Scriptures themselves its keenest shafts ; and 
the history of Ezekiel, certain too practical maxims 
of Ecclesiastes, and certain crudities of the pro- 
phets, without doubt symbolical, are found in it as 
in a jest-book. 

It is in the nature of such a work to be un- 
translatable. I prefer to send my readers to the 
book itself, rather than attempt an impossible ren- 
dering (13). On this occasion, however, irony, in 
the service of common sense, conquered. The men- 
dicant orders, and the old scholastic framework, of 
which they were the firmest bulwarks, have never 
recovered it. 

The German monks were not deceived, like those 
of England and Brabant. They begged, or they 
bought, from the Pope a Bull, which ordered the 
burning of the book and its authors, when they should 
be discovered; for the pamphlet had appeared anony- 
mously. It was sometimes claimed for Erasmus, 
sometimes for Reuchlin ; but from its first appear- 
ance, friends and enemies agreed in recognising, in 
the greater part of it, the hand which had written 



48 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

the Triumphus Capnionis, and modern criticism has 
placed this fact beyond doubt (14). 

We may suppose that the judgment of the Pope 
was less galling to the authors than that of Erasmus. 
As long as the letters were in manuscript, no one 
had more keenly enjoyed them; he had learned 
several of them by heart ; he recited them to his 
friends ; he sent them as wonders to his illustrious 
correspondents in France and England. When they 
were published, however, and the tempest burst, he 
feared to be taken for the author ; and lost no time 
in writing that these letters were very disagreeable 
to him — that he appreciated their cutting irony, 
but that he abhorred all personalities (15). 

Hutten could console himself for this cowardly 
desertion in contemplating the success of his work. 
The war had opened by a victory : that first success 
was, for him, an omen and an encouragement. 

After that first battle, the strife was waged beyond 
the head of Reuchlin ; he almost disappeared in the 
smoke of the combat. However, ,we must relate 
the termination of this first episode. In 1520, after 
the brilliancy thrown on the scene by the writings 
of Hutten and Luther, the Dominicans at length ob- 
tained the condemnation of Reuchlin. But times 
were greatly changed ; Germany no longer gave 
any weight to a sentence which, but lately, would 
have led the condemned to the stake. Only, Franz 



DEATH OF REUCHLIN. 49 

von Sickingen, the protector of all the oppressed, 
and the friend of Hutten, took up the cause of 
Reuchlin, and struck such terror into the Domi- 
nicans, that they hastened to promise never to 
molest the protege of the brave knight. Reuchlin 
died the same year. 




XL 



HAT sadder lot than to be disowned by his 
relations, by those even to whom he has 
sacrificed all, except his faith ! It is the 
last, the bitterest trial, which only the strongest 
spirits can resist. It was not spared to Hutten. 

In his first grief, after the crime which had 
plunged him into mourning, his family had been 
reconciled to him, and Hutten rejoiced in the re- 
conciliation. But he was far from receiving the 
welcome which he had a right to expect after so 
long an absence, after so many misfortunes. They 
did not disguise the contempt which they enter- 
tained for those studies which were his honour and 
delight. What had he learned ? Nothing. What 
was he ? A learned man, a poet, a being useless, 
almost a disgrace to his relations. ' One day,' says 
he, jestingly, ' a noble friend of the family asking 



50 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

of one of my relations by what title he should ad- 
dress me: " Alas," was the answer, " he is still 
nothing.'" But if he had consented to enter the 
convent ! It was not that his father was in reality 
much chagrined that he had disobeyed him in that 
particular ; he confessed one day to Crotus Eubi- 
anus, with a mixture of regret and paternal self- 
love, that he did not believe that his son was fitted 
for such a life. But, as a provident father, he 
wished that he should be something, and Hutten 
was nothing, not even Doctor. ' He must be 
Doctor, or at least Master or Bachelor of Laws, 
or else he is nothing. They don't ask what a man 
is really worth, but what he is. Fortune, title, are 
everything; virtue, nothing.' 

Three high roads then conducted to a position 
in the world — war, the convent, the law. War? 
In spite of his incontestable bravery, Hutten was 
unfitted for it, since he was a learned man. His 
relations and his friends regarded with contempt his 
limbs distorted by disease and enfeebled by study, 
his forehead wrinkled by thought, his hands fitter for 
the pen than the sword. — The convent ? Nothing 
could overcome the horror with which Hutten had 
regarded it even at that age when everything ap- 
pears gay and bright. — There remained but the law. 
The doctors of civil law made a very good figure in 
sixteenth century society. They peopled the courts 



SECOND JOUENEY TO ITALY. 51 

of princes and of the Emperor. ' They fill like 
sponges the ears of the great ; they are their ad- 
visers, their agents in all affairs of peace or war. 
It matters little whether they are indoctrinated 
with learning, provided they have the title of 
Doctor ; with that title, they are sure of being 
everywhere well received. The princes ruin them- 
selves to enrich them.' To sum up all, to be 
Doctor of Laws was no derogation of nobility, even 
in a noble Franconian ; and it was therefore de- 
cided that Hutten should repair to Italy to acquire 
that precious title. 

He set out on his journey with great repug- 
nance ; for he would have preferred proceeding to 
Basle to be near Erasmus, to continue under that 
illustrious master his favourite Greek and Latin 
studies. However, he was determined to satisfy 
the desires of his parents, and he applied himself 
to study with conscientious ardour. But he was 
not captivated by the science of the Bartholists, by 
that vain and unproductive learning which the last 
commentators had established in the schools, and 
which held the ascendant until driven forth by 
Cujas and Donneau. The more he studied it, 
the more he detested that false science, which 
pretended to imprison in antiquated formulas, to 
deaden and to petrify the law, which, rightly 
understood, lends animation and security to social 



52 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

life. And by a contradiction more apparent than 
real, with the very spirit of the Renaissance, he 
attached himself with a thoughtful ardour to the 
last vestiges of the national law. He did so be- 
cause, in his opinion, antiquity was not a model 
which the modern world ought servilely to copy : 
what he sought for in her, was the sacred fire which 
might re-illumine the torch of life. ' How much 
more happy was Germany' (he exclaims in his 
preface to ' Nemo' 1 ) 'before the invasion of these 
Bartholists, who have come, with their innumerable 
volumes, to take the place of the time-honoured 
customs of our forefathers ! What cities are better 
governed than those which have shut their gates 
against them ! Look at the Saxons on the shores 
of the Baltic : how speedy and impartial is justice 
among them ! They only look to their customs, 
while we drag on our law-suits for twenty years, 
led on by the contradictory opinions of six and 
thirty doctors. How can we form a favourable 
opinion of their science, when all their books do 
not teach them to administer law in a uniform 
manner ?' 

1 That preface, under the form of a letter, to Crotus Rubianus, de- 
fends the cause of the Humanists against the Bartholists and the 
theologians. It is one of the most important documents connected 
with the history of the Eenaissance. With regard to the poem to 
which it serves as an introduction, it is a long string of puns, some- 
times ingenious, but without any special interest. 



DISORDERS OF THE PAPACY. 53 

But the most important result of Hutten's jour- 
ney to Italy was, that he saw upon the spot, in 
Rome herself, the corruption of the church. All 
those who have seen papal Rome in her palmy 
days, convey substantially the same impression. 
Boccaccio, Hutten, Luther, Montaigne, Rabelais, 
differ only in the expression of their disgust. The 
Papacy, which fancied that it had burned the last 
heretic in Huss, and which, after the fruitless at- 
tempts at Basle and at Constance, feared no longer 
a general council, which she was besides deter- 
mined never again to convoke, gave herself up, 
without restraint, without fear, to all sorts of ex- 
cesses. After the bloody and scandalous reign of 
the Borgias, came the warlike sway of Julius II., 
under which were to be seen Italians fighting 
Italians, and a Pope pointing his cannon against 
Christians, in order to realize the projects of a de- 
testable ambition. Assassinations, debauchery, the 
most shameful vices, the most unbridled luxury, 
courtesans, and a swarm of infamous men around 
the princes of the Church — idleness, ignorance, bad 
faith, perjury, in the relations of public and private 
life — make up the picture which historians and 
travellers have painted of the court of Rome. And 
in order to defray these unlimited expenses, money 
was drawn, or rather extorted, from Christendom, 
under the pretence of a war, constantly adjourned, 



54 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

against the Turks, or in order to complete the 
always unfinished Church of St Peter ; all ecclesi- 
astical dignities were put up for sale ; annats were 
rendered more frequent by the systematic nomina- 
tion of old men to benefices ; the price of the 
pallium was raised, and that infamous traffic in 
indulgences extended, where heaven was put up to 
sale, and all crimes, even the most infamous and 
nameless ones, pardoned for money. Germany, 
which has ever possessed in a very high degree 
the religious sentiment, was the worst treated of 
all countries, and the most exhausted by the drain 
of continual subsidies. Hutten was indignant at 
seeing the contempt with which the Italians re- 
garded the country of the Othos and the Frede- 
ricks. He returned home, swearing in his heart 
an eternal hatred and a ceaseless war against the 
papal tyranny and corruption. 

His residence in Italy was marked by two inci- 
dents which procured him great honour in Ger- 
many. One day, in the neighbourhood of Yiterbo, 
he heard five Frenchmen scoffing at the Emperor 
Maximilian. He interfered to defend his sove- 
reign. The discussion grew warm ; insults first, 
and then blows, were exchanged. Swords were 
drawn. The five Frenchmen at once threw them- 
selves upon Hutten, who, placing his back to a 
wall, sustained their attacks, killed one of his as- 



CROWNED IMPERIAL POET AND ORATOR. 55 

sailants, and put the others to flight (16). Forced 
to leave Rome in order to escape from their ven- 
geance, he repaired to Bologna. At that town a 
quarrel took place between the German and Italian 
students. The matter was brought before the 
Podesta, and Hutten, who acted as advocate for 
his countrymen, spoke with such warmth, that the 
judge wished to throw him into prison. 

He was therefore obliged to quit Italy without 
having obtained the title of Doctor. But instead, 
the Emperor Maximilian — whom Hutten's exploits 
were exactly calculated to please — knighted him, 
and bestowed upon him the title of Imperial Poet 
and Orator (17). The laurel crown had been 
woven, and was placed upon his head, in April 
1517, by the Pearl of Augsburg, the beautiful 
Constance, the daughter of Peutinger (18). 



XII. 

PON seeing his son crowned Imperial Poet 
and Orator, Hutten's father thought that 
he was at length something, and con- 
soled himself for his return without the title of 
Doctor of Laws. He received him with great kind- 
ness at his castle of Steckelberg, where Hutten 




56 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

remained for some time, uncertain as to his future 
course of life, and undecided whether he should 
establish himself near the Emperor, or with his 
ancient protector, the Archbishop of Mayence. 

His leisure was not, however, lost to the cause 
to which he had devoted his life. In December 
1517, he issued his declaration of war against the 
Pope, and commenced the campaign by the publica- 
tion of the book of Laurentius Valla (19) upon the 
donation of Constantine. This work, like several 
of the writings of Hutten, was printed at the 
castle of Steckelberg ; for these champions of 
liberty did not separate themselves from that power- 
ful weapon in the armoury of freedom, with which 
the genius of Guttenberg had provided them ! 

The donation of Constantine — that audacious 
imposture, upon which are founded the temporal 
sovereignty of the Pope, and his pretensions to 
secular dominion over the whole of the West — is 
now judged. Eoman Catholic authors themselves 
no longer defend it : as in the case of the false 
Decretals, they have been forced to acknowledge 
that it is apocryphal, and to fall back upon a tradi- 
tion, which would only be legitimate if the sources 
from which it flows were so themselves. But, in 
the fifteenth century, criticism had not yet done its 
work, and the Papacy had given up none of the pre- 
tensions which it believed it possible to support. 



EDITS VALLA'S DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 57 

Laureritius Yalla shows, with an affluence of learn- 
ing which now makes us smile, that Constantine 
had not given a world to the Holy See ; that even 
if he had given it, the donation would have been 
null, the Emperor having no right to dismember 
the Empire, and the Pope — the Yicar of Him whose 
kingdom is not of this world — being still less en- 
titled to receive kingdoms ; and that, finally, even 
supposing the donation conferred, and valid, it 
would have lapsed, the Popes having rendered 
themselves unworthy of their rights by their de- 
testable tyranny. ' I shall say it ; for, strong in 
the support of God, I fear not men. No, I have 
not seen a single Pope who dreamed of the happi- 
ness of the people, or who even ruled well. Who 
is it, if not the Pope, who sows war among peaceful 
nations ? He is greedy of the riches of others, 
prodigal of his own. He makes a traffic not only 
of the state, but of the church herself, and of the 
Holy Spirit. He would recover, he says, from the 
wrongful possessors the donation conferred by 
Constantine ! Eh ! what matters it to the church ? 
When the Pope shall possess all these territories, 
will the church be less dishonoured and disturbed 
by so many crimes, by luxury, by furious passions ? 
The Pope gives the excuse and the example for all 
these infamies. We may say to him, with St Paul 
and Isaiah, " Thou therefore which teachest an- 



58 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

other, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that 
preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal ? 
Thou that sayest a man should not commit adul- 
tery, dost thou commit adultery ? Thou that ab- 
horrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou 
that makest thy boast of the law, through break- 
ing the law dishonourest thou God? For the 
name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles 
through you." May I live to see the day when 
the Pope shall be no longer the Yicar of Caesar, 
but of Jesus Christ ; when we shall no longer hear 
of that horrible spectacle — Christians making war 
against the church, and the church attacking 
Perugia and Bologna. No ! it is not the church 
that makes war against the faithful ; it is the Pope ! 
Then the Pope will be, in truth, the holy father 
of all the nations : far from stirring up war among 
Christians, from the height of his pontifical throne, 
he will appease the discords which others have 
excited ! ' 

Such, speaking generally, is the part which the 
Ultramontanists of our times have assigned to the 
Papacy of the Middle Ages, but which history has 
never seen her fulfil. The undaunted writer who 
wrote these noble words was condemned, it is 
almost needless to say. His book was everywhere 
hunted out and burned, and had fallen into almost 
complete oblivion, when Hutten found it in the 



DEDICATION TO POPE LEO X. 59 

library of the Abbey of Fulda. The moment was 
well chosen to give fullest effect to such a work. 
Luther, after having commenced the war against 
indulgences, was troubled in conscience, and hesi- 
tated to attack the Pope. The spirits of all were 
on the stretch, awaiting the event ; for a nameless 
instinct warned them that the hour was come. 

By a master-stroke of audacity, which insured 
him impunity, Hutten dedicated the book to the 
Pope himself, to Leo X. 

4 Although ' (he says) ' all your predecessors have 
condemned the discourse of Laurentius Valla, be- 
cause it impugns the donation of Constantine, I 
dedicate it to you with confidence. I have no fear, 
as some think, that you will be offended at my 
offering. Since your elevation to the Holy See, 
you are the hope and the love of the world, the 
restorer of peace, the protector of the arts and 
sciences. You have silenced the warlike blast of 
the trumpet of Julius II. ; you have promised 
peace, and consequently also justice, security, and 
those truly royal virtues, mildness and clemency. 
My dedication will furnish a testimony to succeeding 
ages, that, under your pontificate, men might think 
and speak freely, might utter and write the truth. 

4 The work of Laurentius Valla undoubtedly 
accuses your predecessors ; but it is even that 
which makes it so useful, because it attacks the 



60 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

enemies of the human race. What other name, 
indeed, can we give to those Popes who engross 
the treasures of every country, and impose upon all 
nations the most crushing of yokes ; who despoil 
kings of their thrones, and private persons of their 
property ? Can we call those men Yicars of Christ 
who have done nothing which Christ has done and 
commanded ? No ! they deserve rather the name 
of thieves and tyrants ! They have made a traffic 
of grace, of temporal and spiritual dispensations. 
They have derived a revenue from the sins of other 
men, and from their punishment even after death ; 
and, every year, they have extorted from Christians 
their last penny, under the pretext of a war, which 
they have never waged, against the Turks, of a 
temple — that of St Peter — which they have never 
finished! And in spite of all these things, they 
would have us to call them, Most Holy Fathers ! 
And if any one permitted himself the slightest 
criticism on their acts or customs, they at once 
fired up, and condemned not merely his body, but 
also his soul. To compare you to such men, would 
be to offer you a gross insult. And therefore I 
persuade myself, that you will receive this my offer- 
ing with pleasure. If you deign to manifest your 
satisfaction at my exertions, I shall strive to offer 
you, at some future period, another present of the 
same description.' 



EFFECT ON THE MIND OF LUTHER. 61 

All Hutten's contemporaries speak of the strong 
impression produced by this bold and well-timed 
publication. -But what testimony can be so valu- 
able as Luther's ? ' I have in my hands ' (he writes 
to a friend) ' the donation of Constantine, refuted 
by Laurentius Valla, and edited by Hutten. Good 
God ! what ignorance, or what perversity in that 
court of Rome ! And how ought we to admire the 
designs of God, who has allowed falsehoods so im- 
pure, shameful, and impudent, to prevail during 
ages, and be received even into the Decretals, and 
among the articles of faith, that nothing might be 
wanting to the most monstrous of monstrosities. 
I am so agitated, that I scarcely any longer doubt 
that the Pope is Antichrist. All agrees : what he 
does, what he says, and what he decrees' (20). 



XIII. 

FTER this thunderbolt, the Archbishop 
of Maj^ence lost no time in attaching 
Hutten to himself. This prelate, as we 
know, was not favourable to the Pope : he too 
had seen on the spot the corruption of Rome ; he 
had been the victim of her rapacity. His pallium 
had cost him no less than 20,000 florins. Thus he 




62 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

was not displeased at an attack made on the 
Papacy from this side. He changed his views, 
however, when he saw that the struggle tended to 
nothing less than the complete liberation of lay- 
men from the priestly yoke, to the secularization 
of the ecclesiastical principalities ; and that, after 
the overthrow of the Pope, it would be the turn of 
the bishops to tremble for their temporal power. 
Hutten did not spare him that shock ; but at this 
time he did not yet foresee the ultimate tendency 
of the movement. As to Luther, the Archbishop 
of Mayence was always his enemy ; the first blow 
struck by Luther having injured his interests. 
For, as we know, the Pope had authorized the 
Archbishop to appropriate the product of the sale 
of indulgences within his diocese, in order to reim- 
burse him for the extortion of which he had been 
the victim at Rome. 

Hutten made a journey to Paris on some business 
of the Archbishop. There he met those liberal- 
minded men, Lefebvre d'Etaples (21), Budee, Copp 
(22), and Rueil, and acquired their friendship. He 
engaged them in the war which he had undertaken 
against the barbarous Scholasticism, or rather he 
strengthened them in their hostility to it ; for, 
long before, these noble spirits had been enlisted 
in the cause. 

The ruling thought of Hutten at this period, is 



LETTER TO COUNT NUENAR 63 

to form a holy league of those who contended for 
the freedom of thought against the tyrants of the 
human intellect. ' Would to God' (writes he to the 
Count Nuenar (23) in 1517) 'that all those were con- 
founded who oppose themselves to the revival of 
letters, and who would fain trample under foot the 
young nursery of all the virtues. A.s for you, re- 
main true to yourself, and to your design. Be 
assured that I shall share in all your labours and 
all your perils. I shall spare nothing to gain over 
to our cause all those who can be useful to it. 
Already, many men of influence are ranged on our 
side. The quarrels, also, which are springing up 
among the enemies of the truth, and of the true 
religion, will hasten their destruction. Perhaps 
you know that but lately, at Wittemberg, one 
party has protested against indulgences, while 
another vindicates them with energy. The chiefs 
of both parties are monks : they harangue, they 
quarrel with all their might. They print proposi- 
tions, conclusions, articles. Truly, I hope that 
they will destroy each other. The other day, I 
said to a monk who related to me these disputes, 
" Go on, cease not to destroy each other, that you 
also may be destroyed ! " If Germany would listen 
to me, she would rid herself of that cankering 
plague before dreaming of attacking the Turks, 
although that also may be very necessary ; for 



64 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

with the Turks, after all, we only dispute about 
the Empire, while we endure among ourselves the 
destroyers of science, manners, and religion ! ' 

It is remarkable with what disdain Hutten 
speaks in this letter of the act which commenced 
the Reformation. At a distance, it seems as if 
this act had, even at the moment, made the world 
tremble. It cannot be believed that Germany re- 
mained indifferent to it : history has preserved the 
remembrance of the profound emotion with which 
that country was affected. But, at that first mo- 
ment, the enemy of the mendicant orders, the 
friend of a prince who sold indulgences, was quite 
headstrong in his friendship and his hatred, and 
could not disengage his judgment from the influ- 
ence of the position in which he was placed. Be- 
sides, to be correct, it must be added, that at that 
time the struggle was confined within narrow 
limits. Many years elapsed before Luther took a 
decisive step against the Pope, and the writings of 
Hutten had a considerable influence in the develop- 
ment of his opinions. We have already seen how 
he had been moved by the work of Laurentius 
Valla, and we shall again observe, more than once, 
traces of a similar impression. It is an essential 
part of the biography of Hutten : by the influence 
which he exercised upon so original a genius, we 
may calculate that which he had with the nation. 



HUTTEN AT AUGSBURG. 65 

Before Luther had declared against the Pope, Hutten 
had already opened the campaign, and produced 
considerable changes. From 1519, Tetzel dares no 
longer show himself in public. About the same 
period, or later, the princes hostile to Luther, the 
ecclesiastical princes themselves, agree that they can 
no longer support the exactions and the iniquities of 
Rome, and that it is necessary to reassert the ancient 
liberty. In their complaints, they display the spirit, 
and employ the very phrases of Hutten. And thus, 
side by side with the doctrinal question, about 
which he was less concerned, Hutten prosecuted 
the war upon the practical basis of the liberation of 
the intellect, by the overthrow of the rapacious and 
corrupt tyranny of the court of Rome. 




XIY. 

UTTEN accompanied the Archbishop of 
Mayence to the Diet of Augsburg in 
1518. The recent conquests of the Otto- 
man arms gave, on this occasion, a peculiar import- 
ance to the eternally recurring question of a tax to 
maintain a war against the infidels. That tax, so 
often agreed to, had never served, except to mini- 
ster to Roman corruption and luxury ; and now that 



G6 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

it was necessary, — now that the war, so to speak, 
was inevitable, nay, on the very threshold of Ger- 
many, — the estates of the kingdom were unwilling 
to grant anything. Hutten had insisted, in an 
energetic and eloquent discourse, upon the neces- 
sity of defending Christendom, more seriously 
menaced than ever. And, at the same time, he 
had pointed out the true means of doing so : by 
the church and the clergy furnishing the money, 
while Germany would give her soldiers and her 
blood. On that occasion, he had declaimed with 
his accustomed vigour against the exactions of the 
Popes. His friends entreated him to suppress that 
part of his oration; but to this he consented with great 
unwillingness. ' Germany is no longer Germany' 
(he writes to Pirckheimer) ; ' the liberty of writing 
exists no longer. He who seeks the truth, and who 
speaks it, is disgraced. It is no longer possible to 
discharge one's duty as an honourable man ! ' This 
concession to the fears of his friends weighed upon 
his mind, and afflicted him with such remorse, that 
in the following year he printed, at his castle of 
Steckelberg, the discourse unmutilated (24). ' Who 
then' — he exclaims in his dedication, To all the free- 
men of Germany — ' would wish to stifle our liberty, 
so that we should no longer be able to rise up 
against any injustice, any exaction ? Let such a 
one beware ! Liberty, trodden down, will some day 



HUTTEN AT COURT. 67 

burst forth, and annihilate her oppressors. I say 
so for their own interest : let them leave a little 
air and space to German liberty. She is not 
exacting, and is content with little ; but she will 
not submit to be chained completely, and led away 
like a slave ! Rather than submit to that excess 
of ignominy, she may at last become thoroughly 
aroused, and, in order to save something, take all.' 

Courtly life did not suit the independent spirit 
of Hutten. At the end of some months, he had 
penetrated into all its hollowness, and criticised it 
in a charming dialogue. He remained at court, 
however, because he thought that he could be more 
useful there than elsewhere. 

' It is necessary for me,' he writes to his friend 
Pirckheimer, ' to throw myself, for the time at least, 
into active life. I owe it to my family, to myself, 
and especially to our well-loved studies. I have 
my plan ; I do not act rashly. I have a well- 
defined aim towards which I direct my career, 
which I seek resolutely to attain; but I cannot 
succeed by my own unassisted strength. I shall 
some day tell you, confidentially, how I hope to 
find the requisite assistance in this court : it would 
be imprudent to confide it to a letter. Let it suffice 
you to know, that it is from a sense of duty that I 
encounter all the tediousness of this life. If my 
condition appears changed to you, be assured that 



68 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

my soul is unchanged : I shall always be the same 
Hutten ; I shall not be unfaithful to my youth, and 
I shall advance, always like myself, in different 
paths. With regard to the designs which I cherish, 
the fortune to which I may look forward, though 
pretty considerable, is not sufficient to carry them 
out. I must endeavour to make my way at court. 
And then, may I not attempt to destroy the preju- 
dices of the nobility against the sciences ? If they 
saw me given up to learned leisure, they would only 
be more confirmed in their opinion, that the sciences 
emasculate the soul, and make it cowardly and 
effeminate. The time for repose has not arrived (25) . 
Our party gains ground every day. The councillors 
of the Emperor and of the princes are upon our 
side : it is on this account that we term the princes 
Mecaanases and Augustuses, not because they al- 
ready merit those illustrious names, but in order to 
inspire them with a generous emulation. Up to the 
present time we have had tolerable success: I 
know more than one who has declared for us from 
fear of disgrace. I am therefore of opinion that we 
should do all to gain their good- will : the Bartholists 
and the theologians have set us the example ; it is 
by this means that they have become so powerful. 
I see here a great number of illustrious men. .... 
Eck combats Carlstadt, my fellow-citizen, a virtuous 
theologian ; he makes war upon Luther and Eras 



LETTER TO PIRCKHEIMER. 69 

mus. Erasmus continues to write. Guglielmus 
Budseus, the most learned of French nobles, the 
most noble of learned men, is finishing his com- 
mentaries upon the Pandects: I leapt for joy at 
that news. Behold, at the same moment, two Her- 
culeses, exterminators of monsters — Erasmus and 
Budseus. The one destroys the posterity of Accur- 
sius, and extirpates the evil brood of the Bartho- 
lists ; the other attacks the barbarians who conceal 
themselves behind the smoke of theology, and brings 
to light the Holy Scriptures. Add to them Faber, 
that mighty workman in philosophy, and Copp and 
Rueil, — the former Dioscorides, the latter Galen. 
Oh age, oh literature ! How delightful it is to live 
now, although the time for repose be not yet arrived ! 
Barbarism, thine hour is come : gird up thy loins, 
and set out on an eternal exile ! ' 



XV. 




DO not pretend to give an account of all 
the works of Hutten. I select those 
which exercised the greatest influence 
on his era, or which best depict his character and his 
designs. The year 1519 was one of the busiest of 
his life. At the same time that he publishes his 
terrible harangues against the tyrant of Wurtem- 



70 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

berg, and serves in the army that chases him from 
his dominions, he edits an edition of Livy, and 
launches against Rome and against her legates 
three dialogues, full of spirit, eloquence, and irony. 
He publishes, and dedicates to Ferdinand, brother 
of Charles Y., a work against Pope Gregory VII., 
which he found, like the discourse of Yalla, buried 
in the dust of the Library of Fulda. He keeps up 
a voluminous correspondence with all the illustrious 
men of his time. 'More than 2000 letters,' says a 
contemporary, 'from kings, princes, lords, bishops, 
from every man of note, came to him from Italy, 
France, Bohemia, Germany, from all countries, 
congratulating him on having commenced the war 
against the Romanists, and seeking to engage him 
to continue it.' 

The moment appeared favourable. The Arch- 
bishop of Mayence treated Hutten like a friend ; 
Erasmus assured him that Ferdinand, brother of 
Charles V., took a great interest in him; and Sic- 
kingen, the better to ensure the co-operation of that 
prince, hastened to offer him his services, which 
were contended for by kings. Finally, Charles V. 
himself appeared likely to be hostile to the Pope, 
who had strained every nerve in favour of Francis 
I., his competitor for the Empire, and detested rival. 
Hutten judged it to be his duty to make a direct 
attack upon the Papacy. He hesitated no longer, 



LOVE OF TRUTH. 71 

but threw himself into the van, shouting his war- 
cry, — A lea jacta est ! He announced his determina- 
tion to all his friends, and made preparations for 
striking a grand blow. 

His mind appears to have been still further 
strengthened in this resolution by religious medita- 
tion. He displays an ardour of faith which is not 
observable in his previous writings. ' Though I 
should be certain,' he says, in the preface of his 
book against Gregory VII., 'that the Pope would 
direct against me the thunderbolts of his wrath, I 
would not for that the less speak out what I know 
to be truth, lest I should have to exclaim with the 
repentant prophet, " Woe is me, for I am undone, 
because I am a man of unclean lips ! " Truly we must 
obey God rather than men, and God commands us 
to speak the truth : He calls Himself the Truth. 
Paul writes to his disciple : " Preach the word ; be 
instant in season and out of season ; reprove, rebuke, 
exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. For 
the time will come when they will not endure sound 
doctrine." Christ also wishes us to proclaim the 
truth undauntedly, and without fearing men, who 
can destroy the body, but not the soul. "I am 
come," says our Saviour, "to send fire upon the 
earth; and what will I if it be already kindled?" 
It is then, unquestionably, a meritorious action to 
bring to light concealed truth ; and I shall have my 



72 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

reward for doing so, if not on this earth, at least in 
that heavenly country where every man will be 
judged according to his works.' 

At this time, Hutten requested his family nei- 
ther to send him money nor to write to him, in 
order that they might not be compromised, and in- 
volved in the perils which he had resolved to incur. 
That affectionate care for his relations never left him. 
On the death of his father, he gave up his inherit- 
ance, and maintained alone, and without resources, 
the terrible struggle in which he was engaged. This 
second portion of his life is entirely self-abnegation. 

It seems probable, however, that, at the last 
moment, his great heart may have hesitated. The 
family sentiment, the desire for domestic life, was 
awakened within him more vividly than ever ; and 
he had fancied in a dream a peaceful domestic ex- 
istence. ' I have a strong desire for repose,' he 
writes to his friend Piscator, ' and some day I 
shall satisfy it. But in order to do so, I must have 
a wife. You know my disposition : I cannot live 
alone. I must have some one near me with whom 
I can unbend from my cares and my toils, with 
whom I can laugh, play, converse gaily, and forget 
the bitterness of my soul, the griefs of my heart. 
Get me a wife, then, dear Frederick ; and, that you 
may know what kind of wife I desire, she must be 
young, handsome, well educated, and modest ; she 



THE TEIAS ROM AN A. 73 

must have a competence, though not a fortune : 
upon riches I do not much insist. As to her birth, 
the wife of Hutten will always be sufficiently noble.' 
But he was never destined to enjoy that happiness 
of which he dreamed — repose beside a beloved wife. 
He was born for strife ; he fulfilled his destiny, and 
found repose in the tomb. 



XVI. 




PEEP ARE a book,' writes Hutten to his 
friend Eoban Hess (26), c which contains 
the strongest and the freest comments 
upon the bloodsuckers of Rome.' That book is 
the Vadiscus, or Trias Romana, published at first 
in Latin, and a short time afterwards translated 
into German.. In his dedication to the knight 
von Rotenhan (27), we read : 1 1 shall not affirm 
that this book is good, for it treats of a detest- 
able subject. Yet I am, perhaps, in the right 
to praise it on account of the truth which it con- 
tains, and the freedom with which that truth is 
stated. I have never satisfied myself so completely 
as in this work. Our liberties were fettered by the 
Pope, I set them free. The truth was banished 
from our country, I bring her back.' 

We must translate the whole of this formidable 



74 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

pamphlet. ' Never,' as is remarked by a biographer 
of Hutten, 1 ' have the unheard-of abuses and cor- 
ruptions of the Church of Rome; her infamies 
and vices, which descended like a flood upon the 
whole world ; her intolerable exactions, especially 
practised upon Germany ; her insults, which ren- 
dered these exactions still more unbearable ; the 
extraordinary patience of princes and nations ; and 
the inevitable necessity of a violent revolution ; 
been represented in more true and lively colours. 
Whoever would wish to know what the Papacy has 
dared, what our ancestors have borne, should read 
this book. No one will lay it down without bless- 
ing its author, without being animated with the sen- 
timents which inspired him, without acknowledg- 
ing that such a state of affairs could be no longer 
supported, and that it was necessary to change it 
at all hazards' (28). 

The Trias Romance is a dialogue, in which the 
interlocutors are Hutten, and one of his friends, 
Ehrenhold. Hutten relates to him what a traveller 
of the name of Yadiscus has told him of the court 
of Rome. These relations are given under the form 
of triads, often interrupted by the exclamations of 
Ehrenhold, and by the reflections which the two 
friends interchange. 

' If I am not entirely mistaken,' says Hutten, 

1 C. Meiners- Lebens Beschreibungen, t. iii. Zurich, 1797. 



THE TRIAS ROMANA. 75 

i our nation aspires to liberty. The wisest and 
the noblest endure with the greatest difficulty the 
exactions of the ignorant and corrupt Romanists, 
and the insults which they add to their violence. 
Things have arrived at such a point, that they can 
no longer be borne. Our princes, met together 
at Frankfort, most deeply felt the insult when 
Cajetan, one of those Romanists a latere, exclaimed, 
on seeing a long procession of priests magnificently 
apparelled, ' ' What handsome grooms we have there ! " 
Not less insolent was that Roman to whom I spoke 
of the oppression of our country, adding that, out 
of regard to their own interests, the Romanists 
would do well to employ a little more moderation 
and address in their robberies. " The barbarians," 
answered he, " are not worthy of having money ; 
they do not even deserve that we should give our- 
selves the trouble to extract from them with address 
what they still possess." No nation is so generally 
and visibly despised at Rome as the Germans ; and 
why ? Because, owing to an overstrained and ill- 
understood piety, we suffer ourselves to be pillaged 
by those unworthy Romans, of that which their 
haughty ancestors could not take from us by force 
of arms. Young and old, men and women, mer- 
chants and work-people, priests and courtiers, and, 
to say the truth, the very Jews themselves, these 
bondmen of every nation, laugh at our folly.' 



76 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

4 Bat the impudence of the vendors of indulgences 
and of the legates, has had the result of opening 
the eyes, even of the people, in many districts of 
Germany. How indignant, for example, were they 
at Frankfort against these legates, who sold to 
thousands of persons the permission to eat butter 
and milk on fast-days ; and yet did not blush to 
make themselves be served with all sorts of meats, 
under the flimsy pretext that the fish of Germany 
made them ill ! However, it is still greatly to be 
lamented that they are unwilling to perceive the 
crimes of the Romanists, and their impudence. It 
is, therefore, necessary to exclaim, warn, accuse, 
and strike, until all understand. I know well that 
this cannot be done without risk ; but what great 
thing is ever achieved without danger ? We must 
write and speak the truth with Christian confidence ; 
knowing how our Saviour Himself has done so, 
vigorously and without pity, when He denounced 
the priests and scribes ! Following in His steps, 
we shall prevail against those who abuse the name 
of God for their earthly ends, who have put their 
human commandments in the place of those of 
Christ, and who know neither how to teach good 
nor to do it. They have made of the word of God 
a fable ; they adore the creature instead of the 
Creator ; they have entered into the Lord's fold, not 
as shepherds, but as thieves and spoilers. Let us 



THE TRIAS ROMANA. 77 

not cease, then, to unmask them. If we cannot 
ourselves accomplish this great enterprise, we shall 
perhaps arouse minds more happily constituted, 
who shall succeed in awakening Christendom from 
its lethargy and raising it against its oppressors. 
Germany could not do a greater service to the 
whole church, and to Christ Himself, than by at 
once cutting short all these exactions, and by leav- 
ing all these copyists and proto-notaries to die of 
famine. More dangerous than the Turks, they 
make a traffic of Christ, of His altars, of His sacra- 
ments, of heaven itself. But hear what Yadiscus 
says : — 

' " Three things maintain the renown of Rome : 
the power of the Pope, relics, and indulgences. 
Three things are brought from Rome by those who 
go there : a bad conscience, a spoiled stomach, an 
empty purse. . Three things are not to be found at 
Rome : conscience, religion, truth. The Romans 
laugh at three things : the virtue of their ancestors, 
the Papacy of St Peter, the last judgment. Three 
things abound at Rome : poison, antiquities, empty 
places. Three things are entirely wanting : sim- 
plicity, moderation, and loj^alty. The Romans 
sell three things publicly : Christ, ecclesiastical 
dignities, and women. Of three things they have 
a horror : a general council, church reform, and the 
progress of enlightenment. Three things may cure 



78 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

Rome of all her vices : the disappearance of supersti- 
tion, the suppression of the Romish form of worship, 
and a revolution of her entire organization. Three 
things are highly prized at Rome : beautiful women, 
handsome houses, and papal bulls. Three things 
are common at Rome : pleasure, luxury-, and pride. 
The poor eat three things : cabbages, onions, and 
garlic. And the rich ? The sweat of the poor, 
swindled wealth, and the spoils of Christendom. 
Rome possesses three sorts of citizens : Simon the 
Magician, Judas Iscariot, and the people of Go- 
morrah. The cardinals drag three trains behind 
them : one at their robes ; another, a band of thieves, 
assassins, and ruffians ; the third, their pardons and 
dispensations with which they sweep up every- 
thing. Three things never satiate the Romans : 
the pallium, the pontifical months, and the annats. 

' " Each year they strive to extort more. Thus 
the pallium of the Archbishop of Mayence formerly 
cost 10,000 florins, now it costs 20,000 ; and in 
the space of a man's life, we have seen it eight 
times renewed. The six months which have been 
given to the Pope, in the event of the vacancy of a 
benefice, are also in the same way raised to a year. 
And not even this suffices them. They sell bene- 
fices publicly, and have no scruple in selling them 
to two or three competitors at the same time. 
What does it matter to them, whether or not they 



THE TRIAS ROM ANA. 79 

have the canonical qualifications? Dispensations 
suffice for everything : they make of a child, and a 
woman, a man who has attained the years of 
majority. The Romans sin without dispensation; 
but they sell to others the pardon of their sins. 

4 " If one wishes to obtain anything at Rome, he 
must provide himself with three things : money, 
introductions, falsehood. Three things will supply 
the place of money : personal beauty, corruption of 
heart, and patience in addition to both. Three 
things may reclaim Rome to virtue : the energetic 
resolution of the princes, the impatience of the 
nations, and the victories of the Turks. Neverthe- 
less, it is not necessary to cut off the head of the 
church : it suffices to extirpate her corruptions ; a 
painful operation, doubtless, and one which cannot 
be effected without violence. When the head shall 
be cured, the body will do well. The priests, less 
numerous, less rich, and better employed, will 
lead more holy lives ; they will marry respectable 
women, instead of maintaining shameless concu- 
bines. This indispensable reform has always failed 
owing to the fault of sovereigns, and the ignorance 
of nations. It is therefore time that these abuses 
should come to an end. Let us no longer endure 
that Rome shall oppress us by a false appearance of 
holiness ; that she shall impose upon us, as the in- 
fallible laws of the church, the bulls which the Pope 



80 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

fabricates with some favourite associates ; and that 
she shall despoil us by means of her indulgences, or 
under the most lying pretexts. The successors of 
St Peter ought, indeed, to fish, but souls, and not 
treasures ; for no communion can exist between 
Christ and Belial. Christ has said, Blessed are the 
poor ; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven ! But as 
for them, they say : To the rich is the kingdom of 
heaven ; for the Pope and his agents go everywhere 
preaching and proclaiming that we participate in 
the kingdom of heaven, just in proportion to the 
number of indulgences which we buy. And as to 
all the dispensations sold by the legates ! They re- 
lease from the most sacred oaths, from the holiest 
duties, from the penalties which have been deserved 
by the most execrable crimes. 

1 " Three things are incessantly going on at Rome, 
and never finished : the canonization of saints, the 
building of churches, and the war against the Turks. 
Of three things it is forbidden to speak ill: the 
Pope, indulgences, and impiety. Three classes of 
people bear rule at Rome : ruffians, courtesans, and 
usurers. Three things are pompously apparelled : 
prelates, mules, and women of the town. Of three 
things they boast at Rome, although they possess 
them not : piety, faith, and innocence. And three 
things exist, of which they boast not : traffic in 
offices, the venality of justice, and treachery in 



THE TEIAS ROM ANA. 81 

friendship. To his two swords, the Pope adds a 
third, with which he shears his flock and flays 
them till the blood flows. 

* " Such is the impure source from which a flood 
of corruption and misery has flowed down upon 
every nation ; and will not all the nations under- 
stand that it must be stopped up ? Will they not 
come by land and sea with fire and sword ? Oh, 
Rome ! all Christendom has her eyes fixed upon 
thee ; what thou dost appears to all honourable and 
lawful. It is on this account that thy corruption 
has tainted everything. Thou hast gathered to- 
gether, as in a reservoir, the spoils of an entire uni- 
verse ; and thou hast given them to be consumed 
by a crowd of parasites. First they have drained 
our blood, then they have eaten our flesh ; now they 
have come to the very marrow of our bones, and 
still they are not satiated ! And yet the Germans 
would hesitate to have recourse to arms I These 
are the spoilers of our country : we defray the ex- 
pense of all their vices. With the money of which 
they plunder us, they maintain their dogs, their 
horses, their mistresses. We pay for the purple 
that clothes them, for the marble palaces in which 
they dwell. And now they threaten, they insult 
us ; they forbid us to hesitate, to murmur at their 
intolerable exactions. They wish, along with our 
money, our shame and our smiles. When shall 

F 



82 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 

we have eyes to see our humiliation and our ruin, 
and arms to avenge them ? " ' 1 



XVII. 




HE Trias Romana produced an immense 
sensation in Germany. 'By this pam- 
phlet,' says Cochlseus, Hutten has made 
the name of the Roman court the most detested 
in Germany.' And it is principally to it that we 
must attribute the expression of popular opinion 
which, as we have already seen, burst forth against 
the legates in 1519 and 1520. 

The fame of it reached even to Rome, and pro- 
cured for Hutten, for the first time, the honour 
of the pontifical wrath. But before the Pope 
had fulminated an anathema against him, Hut- 
ten had already acquired a fresh title to his im- 
placable hatred. He printed, in June 1520, several 
letters, written at the end of the fourteenth cen- 
tury by the most illustrious Universities, upon the 
means of putting an end to the schism in the 
church. His preface terminates by the noble 

1 I have given a summary of this pamphlet, principally following 
Meiners. I cannot cite all which I borrow from that excellent book. 



FURTHER ATTACKS ON THE PAPACY. 83 

motto which he adopted after the publication of the 
Trias Romana, i Long live liberty ! The die is cast ! ' 
His principal aim in publishing these letters, was 
to point out with what freedom the ancient Uni- 
versities had discussed the rights of nations, of the 
Emperor, of councils, and the illegal power of the 
Popes. He wished to arouse, by that example, the 
emulation of the principal schools of his time, and 
to protest against the condemnation pronounced by 
the Universities of Cologne and of Louvain against 
Luther. He cites, at the end of his preface, that 
beautiful saying of St Gregory : ' We must remind 
subjects, that they must not be too submissive ; 
otherwise they would come to venerate even the 
vices of their masters.' And to the court of Rome 
he made the application of that great and everlast- 
ing reservation in favour of justice ! 

This work was published in the castle of 
Steckelberg. The boldness of the Trias Romana, 
printed at Mayence, had undoubtedly overpassed 
the limits which the Archbishop wished to put to 
his adhesion to the new ideas. Shortly afterwards, 
the Archbishop received a brief from the Pope, who, 
with all the deference due to such an important 
personage, expressed his astonishment and grief at 
learning that there had been printed in his arch- 
bishopric, and almost under his eyes, such enor- 
mities, and exhorted him to punish the insolence 



84 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

of a certain Hutten, 1 that his chastisement may 
serve as a warning and example to others. Albert 
did not follow the injunction of the Pope to the 
letter, but he demanded of Hutten a promise to 
write nothing more against the court of Rome. 
Hutten refused to enslave his conscience, and the 
Archbishop, under pain of excommunication, pro- 
hibited the reading of the writings of Hutten, and 
other such fellows. i This,' writes Luther, ' is un- 
doubtedly directed against me. If he had named 
me, I would have answered in such a way as to 
cure him of the wish of attacking me. By these 
violences, they themselves prepare the way for the 
end of their tyranny.' 

Hutten having no longer any hope of assistance 
from the Archbishop of Mayence, and freed from 
the restraints which that hope imposed upon him, 
hastened to ally himself with Luther. He had 
already appreciated the importance of the mission 
which that great man was called upon to fulfil. 
He had comprehended that the monkish quarrel, 
at which he had formerly laughed, contained the 
germ of that very revolution to which all his own 
energies were directed. He had, in common with 
all Germany, been charmed, carried away, and sub- 

1 This presumption of style was usual with the Eoman court. In 
the bull against Luther, we read in the same way, ' a certain Luther.' 
Hutten puts, as a note upon this word, Attende 



LUTHER AND HUTTEN. 85 

dued by the burning words of the Doctor of Wittern- 
berg, and with the glance of an experienced man, 
with the modesty of a hero, he had hailed in 
Luther the chief of the Reformation. After 1519, 
he had caused to be made to him the offer of a 
secure asylum with Sickingen. In June 1520, he 
himself thus wrote to him : — 

' Long live liberty ! Ulrich von Hutten, knight, 
to Martin Luther, theologian. If you meet with 
some difficulties in the great enterprises which you 
undertake with such unshaken courage, be assured 
that I am with you, heart and soul. And, for my- 
self, I do not remain idle. May Christ be with us 
and assist us, since we restore, you with more suc- 
cess, I according to my abilities, His divine laws ; 
and may He bring us back to the light of His 
doctrine, falsified and veiled in darkness by the 
pontifical constitutions. Would to God that all 
would feel like us, and that our adversaries 
would themselves recognise their injustice, and 
return to the right way ! They say that you are 
excommunicated. How much, Luther, would 
that ennoble you ! All truly religious men would 
say with you, " They have enchained the word of 
the Just One, and have condemned innocent blood ; 
but the Lord our God will punish them for their 
injustice, and will cause them to perish in their 
iniquity." There is our hope and our faith. Eck 



86 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

returns from Rome, overwhelmed, it is said, with 
money and benefices ; and afterwards ? The sinner 
is praised in his plans ; but may the Lord direct us 
in His truth ! . . . . However, be upon your guard, 
and withdraw not your attention or your mind from 
the designs of your persecutors. If you should now 
perish, you must yourself feel what a public calamity 
that would be ! I well know that your courage is 
such, that you would prefer to die thus, rather 
than continue to live as you have hitherto done. 
Me they equally threaten, and I have determined 
to take all possible precautions : if they employ 
force, I shall oppose it with force, equal, I 
trust, if not superior ; yet I sincerely desire that 
they may deem me beneath their notice. Eck has 
denounced me as belonging to your party : and in 
that he has spoken the truth; for I have always 
gone along with you in all that I have known of 
you. But, up to the present time, we have never 
had any connection : he has then lied when he has 
said, in order to please the Pope, that we act in 
conformity to a plan previously agreed upon be- 
tween us. What a wicked and insolent man ! As 
to yourself, remain firm, and hesitate not in the 
path on which you have entered. In every engage- 
ment I shall be your second : you may then confide 
to me all your ulterior projects. Let us unite 
to save liberty ; let us set free our country, so 



LETTER TO LUTHER. 87 

long oppressed. The Lord is with us ; who, then, 
shall be against us? .... I set out to-day to 
present myself to Ferdinand. I shall spare nothing, 
and shall make the greatest exertions to forward 
the interests of our cause. Sickingen invites you to 
come to him, if you are not in safety where you are 
at present : he will welcome you as you deserve, 
and will protect you against every enemy. He has 
several times requested me to write to you.' 

This letter appears to have been printed imme- 
diately, with the exception of the name of Sickin- 
gen, which is left blank in the edition which is 
before me : they wished, doubtless, not to divulge 
beforehand the asylum offered to Luther. It ap- 
pears to have made a great impression upon the 
illustrious Reformer. Henceforth he found himself 
more free, and less obliged to moderate the impe- 
tuosity of his generous anger, as he had hitherto 
done, out of regard to the Elector of Saxony. It is 
at this time (December 1520) that he published 
his Captivity of Babylon, and his Appeal to the Chris- 
tian Nobility of the German Nation for the Reforma- 
tion of the Church. 




88 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

XVIII. 

UTTEN set out, full of hope, for Brabant, 
where Ferdinand held his court while 
waiting for the arrival of his brother, 
Charles Y. The young Emperor was about to 
visit the Empire. It appeared impossible that 
Charles V., elected in spite of the Pope, and 
who seemed to wear so loftily all the crowns 
united on his head, should not seize the oppor- 
tunity, unique in history, of terminating to his 
own advantage the war between the secular empire 
and the priesthood, and of reforming the abuses 
under which the church was sinking. The favour 
which Sickingen enjoyed at his court increased 
still further these hopes ; for no one was ignorant of 
the ties which linked that noble knight — in whom 
Germany honoured another Bayard — to the friends 
of the new learning. But where Hutten saw en- 
couragement given to a fervent partisan of reform, 
there was only a political calculation. Charles V. 
wished to attach to himself a man who was the 
most brilliant representative of ancient chivalry, 
iron arm and lion heart, whom the whole German 
nobility hailed as its hero and its model. To do so 
was to gain, in the very heart of Germany, an import- 
ant basis of defence against the princes, who, for a 
century, had directed all their efforts to form in the 



THE POPE AND THE EMPEROR. 89 

Empire a kind of constitutional oligarchy. As to 
the Pope, if Charles V. had only been Emperor, he 
would undoubtedly have boldly treated him as his 
enemy ; for, in spite of his Spanish education, we 
cannot suppose the man who afterwards let loose 
against Rome the Lutheran bands of Freundsberg 
(29) to have been troubled with many religious 
scruples. But at this moment, as the Pope might 
be useful to his designs upon Italy, he sacrificed 
to him Germany. Hutten rapidly comprehended 
the motives of a policy which was to result in the 
Edict of Worms ; but, faithful to the ideal which he 
had formed of the Emperor, he preferred to impute 
to his youth and inexperience, abused by detestable 
advisers, a conduct dictated by a genius which was 
profoundly calculating in the very age of passion. 

Hutten could not remain long at court. On his 
arrival, he was warned that the legates had designs 
upon his life, and that they had hired assassins to 
make away with him, by dagger or by poison. His 
friends entreated him to be gone. He resisted for 
a long time ; but he was at length obliged to yield 
to the evidence of facts, and to depart in all haste. 
At Mayence, they believed him dead, and his return 
was celebrated as a resurrection. He learned at 
Frankfort, that the Pope had written to several of 
the princes, to request them to seize and send him 
prisoner to Rome : that demand had been especially 



90 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

directed to the Archbishop of Mayence. Finally, 
the legate asked the Emperor to put Hutten to the 
ban of the Empire, and to permit the agents of the 
Roman court to seize his person, wherever they 
might find him. 

These circumstances created a kind of solitude 
around Hutten. The feeblest among his friends 
denied him : the others withdrew. As to himself, in 
this moment of extreme danger, he became but the 
more determined to defend the truth, to vindicate the 
liberty of his country — i for which,' he says, ' it is my 
duty to die.' His friend Sickingen gave him, in his 
castle of Ebernburg, a retreat inaccessible to all vio- 
lence, to all treason. From thence, as from another 
Wartburg, this worthy brother in arms of Luther 
continued to issue his fiery publications. 

This time, he relied upon the injury done to 
himself, and made it the text of an energetic appeal 
to the liberty and the honour of Germany. As in 
the outset of his career, he raised his private affairs 
to the elevation of a great national cause, and excited 
all minds by the vehemence of his protestations. 

He writes to his former protector, the Archbishop 
of Mayence : * L I have learned through others what 

1 This letter, and those which follow, are brought together in a collec- 
tion which bears on the title-page the motto, Jacta est alea, and which 
finishes by that verse of the psalmist — Dirumpamus vincula eorum et 
projiciamus a nobis jugum ipsorum. 



DENOUNCED BY ROME. 91 

Leo X. has demanded of you, — by what commands, 
what force, he presses you to send me in fetters to 
Rome. I ought, perhaps, to have waited until 
warned by yourself. Without doubt, you fear the 
Pope. I hope that you are the better for such con- 
descension; but I am very much afraid that, by 
pretensions hitherto unheard of, he prepares for 
all of you, bishops and priests, some disastrous, 
some atrocious blow. Think of this, and take 
your precautions in time. More than ever it is 
necessary that I should be able to maintain my 
communications with you; and nothing is more 
painful to me, in my present position, than not 
being able to do so. I am shut out from courts, 
from towns, from all public life, from all human 
society ; and for what crime ? Because I have de- 
fended the truth, and advised what is good. They 
have condemned me unheard, and they only wish 
to have me at Rome in order to put me to death. 
Who, then, with a drop of German blood in his veins, 
would not have risen against such indignities ? Yes, 
I despise, I detest all these inventions of the Bishops 
of Rome. They are not inspired by God, but by the 
love of gain. I brave their anger, their excommuni- 
cations, and their poisons ; my help is in the Lord, 
the Creator of heaven and earth.' (September 1520.) 
To his old friend, the knight von Rotenhan, 
he writes : ' What think you of this thunderbolt 



92 ULELCH VON HUTTEN. 

launched against me ? What are your hopes, your 
expectations of the future ? When they attack 
me, dare you defend me? Have you still the 
heart of a Franconian, a love for the ancient liberty 
of our country? No, Germany is not so abandoned 
of Heaven, that many will not join with me to 
carry out that great enterprise, which cannot longer 
be deferred without ruin to our libert}^, without 
ruin to every true Christian. If I remain alone, I 
shall find a refuge in my own conscience, and shall 
console myself by the hope of a near futurity ; for 
the flame which I have kindled, cannot be so 
thoroughly extinguished as to prevent its bursting 
forth anew, more terrible than ever. Watch, 
therefore, the course of events with care : sound the 
intentions of the nobility. As to my foes, tell them 
that I am disheartened : they will perhaps despise 
me. I make my complaint to the Emperor, to the 
princes, to the nations of Germany, not that I fear 
for myself, but that 1 wish to raise public opinion 
in favour of the cause of liberty, by exposing the 
unheard-of iniquity of the conduct of the Romanists. 
The Pope invokes against me the aid of the secu- 
lar arm, and, for my part, I invoke the goodness of 
the Lord ! How will all this end ? You may form 
conjectures ; but this is certain, that we shall 
attempt something, and that we shall not manage 
the affair like cowards.' (September 1520.) 



LETTER TO CHARLES V. 93 

Of the same date, he addressed a letter to 
Charles V., in which he insists upon the insult offered 
to the imperial dignity by the claim put forward 
by the Pope, to order a German knight, a member 
of the body of which the Emperor is the head, to 
be brought in chains to Rome, without trial or 
judgment. 'And for what crime? They them- 
selves confess that there is none. But for what 
reason? Because I have proclaimed the Christian 
truth, protested against the novel inventions of the 
Pope, vindicated the ancient liberty of the Empire, 
and especially because I have diminished their re- 
ceipts, and the profits of their spoliation. If this is 
a crime, let me, at least, be judged and punished by 
you, my only sovereign. What would become of 
Germany, if we could no longer, either serve you 
without peril, or undertake without danger the 
affairs of the country ? And what would become^ 
of religion, if we were forced to put the paltry 
Romanist traditions above the divine commands ? 
Would to God you could behold what indignation 
that violence excites, with what passion we await, 
at your hands, justice and vengeance ! Each one 
feels himself threatened. Is it not truly an atroci- 
ous, an unheard-of thing, to wish to chain a man, 
to torture him, to kill without hearing him? (30.) 
Yes, I have attacked, I shall unceasingly attack, 
the enemies of the truth, the oppressors of public 



94 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 

liberty, the maligners of your dignity. It is my 
duty to watch over your dignity ; my religion, to 
love my country. In all this, I have no private in- 
terest to serve. Truly, my conscience vindicates 
me, and I have confidence in your justice. Your 
interest is mine, my cause yours ; if you abandon 
me, you are lost. After that first concession, you 
can no longer refuse anything to their insatiable 
pretensions ; else they will overthrow you, as they 
have overthrown so many of your predecessors. 
What have they not wrested from the Empire by 
stratagem and by force ? They have made emperors 
kiss their feet ; they have imposed upon them the 
oath of vassalage. They ruin your Empire by their 
exactions. They sell indulgences, absolutions, dis- 
pensations, — a traffic infamous from its objects, more 
infamous still by the artifices of those who carry it 
on. They anathematize the best of your subjects ; 
some of them they have poisoned, others they have 
delivered over to their enemies. They fan the flame 
of discord among the German princes. Such has been 
their work hitherto. One thing only remains : to 
compel the delivery to them of those Germans who 
have incurred their displeasure. Such is what they 
now demand. Think of your dignity, of the majesty 
of the Empire, of my own rank ! Judge my cause 
yourself. What can a German knight have to do 
with the Bishop of Rome ? ' 



LETTER TO FREDERICK OF SAXOXY. 95 

Sickingen transmitted this letter to Charles V., 
who promised that Hutten should not be delivered 
up, without being brought to trial. 



XIX. 




NOTHER letter, addressed to the princes, 
the nobles, and the people of Germany, 
reproduced the same considerations, the 
same eloquent complaints. But the most important 
document of this collection, is that addressed to 
Frederick of Saxony, the moderate but resolute 
protector of Luther. It is quite a manifesto. 

4 The moment is come, Prince Frederick, to op- 
pose the tyranny of Eome. In spite of so many 
brotherly warnings, the Romanists, instead of ex- 
hibiting more moderation, have only become still 
more violent. You know that they wish that 
I should be sent to Rome in fetters. And as to 
Luther ? What a cruel and violent bull have they 
launched against him ! The roaring of the lion, 
who has made all the flock of Christ to tremble ! 
Where can we trace the least mildness or apostoli- 
cal moderation? More atrocious still, when the 
Pope enwraps himself, in that bull, in the mantle of 
Christian benevolence, and, in dulcet tones, invites 



96 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

Luther to come to Rome. Luther at Rome ! But 
do we not know, only too well, what they would do 
to us, if Luther should go there voluntarily, and I 
should be brought there by force ? As to myself, 
I wonder how Leo has been able to persuade him- 
self that it would be so easy to rid himself of me, and 
to drag me to Rome ! And then, what conduct for 
a pastor, for a bishop, for a vicar of Christ, to con- 
demn a Christian to capital punishment without 
judging him, without even hearing him ! And 
what crime of ours excites his fury against us ? 
We have striven to bring to light the Christian doc- 
trine, obscured and almost effaced by his rapacity. 
Our nation is the best fitted for liberty, and we 
cannot resign ourselves to behold her enslaved. 
This is what displeases that good shepherd ; but 
this also is pleasing to Christ. We cannot, at the 
same time, serve Christ and the Pope, our country 
and her oppressors. Peace cannot subsist between 
him and us ; for peace is between us and truth ! 

L The moment has arrived when the strife can be 
no longer deferred. Their perversity and our misery 
are at their height. The day approaches when that 
great Babylon, the mother of corruptions and abomi- 
nations, shall fall ; — I would say, that See of Rome, 
sullied by every crime, and which, hostile to all 
the institutions of Christ, pretends to hold the place 
of Christ, which, full of lust, and glutted with the 



LETTER TO FREDERICK OF SAXONY. 97 

blood of the earth, does not the less hold up to the 
eyes of the faithful the keys which open and shut 
heaven, with a confidence so complete, that she fears 
not to sell us consecrated things, or to forbid us their 
use, according to her caprice. I seem to hear a hea- 
venly voice; which commands us to attack, to destroy 
that hundred-headed beast: Shall her crimes still 
go on increasing ? And if they are at their height, 
ought they not at length to be punished ? 

i But who shall overthrow that detestable struc- 
ture ? Who shall reform these vices ? Who wash 
away these pollutions ? God ? Yes, doubtless, 
but by the instrumentality of man. What are you 
then about, Princes? What advice, what as- 
sistance do you offer us ? You especially, to whom 
belongs the hereditary right to defend the liberties 
of Germany : you, the chief of these noble Saxons 
whom no foreigner has ever subdued ! the chief of 
the country of Arminius, of the Henry's and of the 
Otho's ! Would to God that you, who have the 
power, possessed also our boldness ; or that we, 
who have the boldness, possessed your power ! As 
to me, I shall not cease to exhort you, until you 
have recovered your ancient virtue, or until I see 
that you are no longer capable of doing so. Then 
I shall betake myself elsewhere. If the head of 
the nation fails to support this great cause, the 
arms shall not also be wanting ! ' 

G 



98 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

' But cannot we emancipate ourselves without 
bloodshed ? May that blood be on the heads of 
those who will not give up their injustice and 
tyranny! Let us strike with the sword, if so it 
must be, those who have so often made use of the 
sword. Perhaps it will not be necessary to go this 
length. There is a certain means to destroy the 
Roman tyranny : let us keep our money. After- 
wards, under another Otho, we shall purge the city 
of Rome and its senate ; we shall restore to the 
Emperor the capital of the Empire • we shall bring 
down the Pope to the level of the other bishops ; 
we shall diminish the number and the revenues of 
the priests, we shall scarcely retain one out of a 
hundred. As to those who call themselves friars, 
and who live only by disputes, we shall entirely 
suppress them. Then no one shall enter into the 
ranks of the clergy through effeminacy or love of 
money ; and all those hypocritical monks shall 
cease to deceive the people, and to beg the sweat 
and the blood of the poor !' 

' In destroying the convents, in cutting off all 
the avenues by which our money finds its way to 
Rome, we shall acquire a variety of resources for 
useful employment : we shall then be able to raise 
armies against the Turks, to maintain the many 
unfortunates whom hunger drives to theft, to pro- 
tect the sciences, to assist the miserable, . to en- 



LETTER TO FREDERICK OF SAXONY. 99 

courage virtue. Then we shall give one hand to 
the Bohemians, who have freed themselves before 
us from that rapacious spawn, and the other to the 
Greeks, who have separated themselves from the 
Roman tyranny.' 

i They will say that this is to overwhelm the 
bark of St Peter, to rend the coat without seam : 
such is the habitual theme of their declamations. 
But you must clearly perceive that, far from sup- 
pressing charity, I earnestly wish to enlarge its 
sphere, by chasing away those who are obstacles to 
its operation. Far from destroying the church, I 
open its arms to all Christians : instead of these cor- 
rupted Romanists, these buttresses of Antichrist, I 
would entrust the priesthood to those recommended 
by the purity of their lives. The drones removed, 
the bees will come of themselves.' 

' For my part, if I do not succeed in gaining 
you over to this noble enterprise, nor in else- 
where kindling the fire which shall purify that 
corruption, I shall at least do nothing unworthy 
of a knight. Never shall I retreat a hair's breadth 
from anything that I have spoken ; I shall remain 
free, for I fear not death. Hutten will never be- 
come the slave of a foreign sovereign, however 
great he may be, and of the Pope less than any 
other; for I would consider it dishonouring to 
me, and a calling down of the divine wrath. 



100 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

if I adored along with you the hundred-headed 
beast!' 

c And now, I quit towns, because T cannot for- 
sake the truth ; I live in solitude, because I cannot 
live free in society. For the rest, I am full of con- 
tempt for the dangers which threaten me ; for I 
can die, but not be a slave. I cannot endure with 
patience the yoke borne by my country. But one 
day, perhaps, I shall emerge from my retreat ; I 
shall arrive in the midst of the assembled multi- 
tude, and I shall cry out to my fellow-citizens, 
" Who will live and die with Hutten for liberty?" ' 
(September 1520). 

Luther, in sending this letter to Spalatin, to be 
transmitted to the Elector, adds, ' Good God ! what 
will be the end of all these novelties ! I begin to 
believe that the Papacy, hitherto invincible, will 
be overthrown, contrary to all expectation, or else 
the last day approaches.' 



XX. 

UTTEN had long believed that the union 
of the Emperor, of the nobles, of the 
learned men and intelligent burgesses 
of the great towns, might, without any revolu- 




HIS FIRST POEM IN GERMAN. 101 

tionary movement, effect a pacific reformation of 
the church, and bring about the foundation of a 
national church upon the ruins of that of Rome ; 
for it is to these two objects that his thoughts seem 
at first to have been limited, and his polemical 
writings directed. He therefore wrote in the Latin 
language, c in order to give,' as he himself says, 
4 my counsels in some degree in secret. I have 
not been anxious to address myself to the people, 
although I had so many inducements to do so.' 
But he soon saw that nothing could be effected 
without a great movement of public opinion. He 
could no longer delude himself either with re- 
liance on the Archbishop of Mayence, who had 
abandoned his cause, or on Charles V., who had 
allied himself to the Pope, or on the princes, who 
all followed their private ends. He comprehended 
that he must seek elsewhere the support which the 
great and powerful refused him. 

In September 1520, he published a translation 
of his letter to the Elector of Saxony ; and a little 
later, he sent forth among the people a poem in 
German, under the title, ' Complaint and Warning 
against the excessive, antichristian Power of the Pope, 
and against the Godlessness of the Monastic Orders. 
Written in verse by Ulrich von Hutten, Poet and 
Orator, for the good of all Christendom, and especially 
of Germany, his native country. The die is cast I 



102 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 

have dared it? Let us conceive the impassioned 
and too true accusations of the Trias Romana, — 
its invocations to patriotism, to glory, to oppressed 
liberty, — its ardent protestations against Romish 
tyranny and corruption, thrown among a people 
who had just begun to read some of the writings of 
Luther, and who had hitherto possessed scarcely 
any other intellectual nourishment than the ro- 
mances of chivalry ; and we shall comprehend the 
effect produced by Hutten's poem. Certainly, we 
need not search there for the poetic ideal ; but the 
rhyme, united to the popular clearness of thought, 
doubled its effect and fixed it in the memory. 
Thus, the poorest bought the poem, the most 
ignorant understood it; everywhere, even in the 
most remote hamlets, some one was found to re- 
peat to the deeply-moved commonalty the words 
of freedom. This immense and truly popular suc- 
cess, attested by an infinite number of editions 
which succeeded each other from month to month, 
and some of which continued to appear even to the 
middle of the seventeenth century, was, indeed, all 
that Hutten had hoped for. 'Up to this time,' he 
says, ' I had written in Latin ; I was not understood 
by every one. Now I invoke the fatherland in the 
national language. You must blow away from be- 
fore your eyes the smoke which blinds you. If 
you would follow my advice, fellow-countrymen, 



HIS DEFENCE OF HUSS. 103 

you would very speedily purge the Gospel of all 
these Romish fables.' 

After what I have said of the preceding writings 
of Hutten, and especially of the Trias Romana, I 
need not delay long upon this German poem. What 
is new in it, is not the thought, but the form, the lan- 
guage, the rhyme, the appeal to the people. How- 
ever, I must mention two things, which will give 
us an accurate conception of the nature of the 
ideas which at this moment occupied the mind of 
Hutten. The first is the justification of John Huss, 
which will be soon followed by that of Ziska. 

' They have burned Huss,' he says, ' because he 
held to the teaching of Christ without attending to 
the glosses of the priests ; because he denounced 
their avarice, their pride, their luxury, the tyranny 
of the Pope, and all his thefts from Christians, 
and the constitution of the canon law, opposed 
in every point to the Scriptures. These denuncia- 
tions were true then, and are true now. The 
priests, however, were stirred up to vengeance. 
Huss was cited before them, with a safe-conduct 
from the Emperor ; but Sigismund kept his word 
as so many princes still do. He suffered himself to 
be led away by the advice of the priests, which also 
condemned Christ. They told him that he was not 
bound to keep faith with a heretic. But, although 
it might be true that Huss was a heretic, a crime 



104 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 

was not the less committed, in condemning him 
in spite of his safe-conduct. Nor was Jerome of 
Prague any more spared. Since that time, none 
have followed their example : all have feared the 
stake.' 

I shall next cite the conclusion of the poem, 
which contains a direct call to arms : — •' How can 
we endure such a tyranny ? I affirm that we 
ought not to do so. The time is come. God 
has reserved for our age the liberation of our 
fatherland. I hope that King Charles will be on 
our side, that he will not give himself up to oppres- 
sion. I summon to that work the princes, the 
nobles, and all those who wish to crush the heresy 
of the Pope. He who would remain indifferent to 
this great enterprise, loves not his country, and 
knows not the true God! We wish to abolish 
superstition, to restore truth. And since that can- 
not be done peacefully, it may well be necessary 
that blood shall flow. As to myself, I have recoiled 
before that extremity, I have believed that we 
might attain our object by another path. But 
we must do what we can. The hour has sounded : 
we have already submitted to too many insults. 
Rally round me, Germans ; be of good cheer. We 
have plenty of hauberks and horses, of halberts and 
swords ; and, since pacific counsels are useless, let 
us fly to arms ! The help and the vengeance of 



TRANSLATES THE TRIAS ROMANA. 105 

God are on our side ! Our enemies are the enemies 
of God ! Let my words awaken the princes in their 
courts, the knights in their castles, the burgesses in 
their towns ! Who would stay inactive at home, 
in so good a cause ! For my own part, I have 
dared the peril, that is my device ! ' 

In the same year, 1520 — that year so fruitful in 
Hutten's life, so important in the history of the Re- 
formation, in which Luther published his book on 
the Captivity of Babylon, and burned the Pope's 
bull and the decretals in the public square at Wit- 
temberg — Hutten translated into German several of 
his dialogues, and especially the Trias Romana, and 
published them, with a dedication to The noble, 
famous, courageous, and very honourable Councillor, 
servant and captain of His Majesty the Emperor, 
Francis of Sickingen, my well beloved friend and con- 
soler. I may perhaps be mistaken ; but I think that 
we find in these pages something of the touching 
accents of Montaigne, when speaking of La Boetie. 

' It is not without reason that the proverb says : 
In adversity we come to know our friends ! for no 
one can be assured of having a friend, if he has 
not proved him during adversity, so as thoroughly 
to know him. Although those are to be esteemed 
happy who have not required thus to test their 
friends, those also may thank God who have found, 
in their misfortunes, a faithful and steady friend. 



106 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 

More than any one, therefore, I ought to bless God 
and my destiny. For, attacked by my enemies 
in my property, my person, and my honour, with 
such violence, that I have scarcely had time to 
summon my friends to my assistance, you have 
come to my aid, not, as often happens, with words 
of consolation only, but also with effective help. . . 
. . . It is not that I despise those who are our 
friends in the time of prosperity (although that may 
be termed an agreeable acquaintanceship rather 
than a true friendship) ; but I make between the 
two the same distinction that physicians make 
amongst meats : some are merely savoury ; others 
are also salutary. And thus, Heaven has bestowed 
you upon me, when I had need both of help and 
of cure. From the love of truth, and from com- 
passion for my misfortunes, you have espoused my 
cause without caring about my enemies. And 
when, through the imminence of the danger, the 
cities were closed against me, you have opened to 
me your castles, which I shall call on this, and on 
other accounts, the abodes of justice' 

1 Besides, I found myself not a little strengthened 
in my purpose, when I saw that you also regarded 
it as just and honourable. And -all the learned 
men of Germany, who are menaced in my person, 
have taken courage ; whilst the Romanists, who, 
believing me entirely overthrown, already cele- 



CORRESPONDENCE WITH LUTHER. 107 

brated their triumph, have become discouraged, 
on finding me supported by an impregnable wall. 
In order to prove to you my gratitude, it is not 
heart that I want, or will, but happiness and ability ; 
but, at least, I give you that of which none can 
deprive me, the strength of my soul and of my 
intellect. 

' I offer you, then, for your New Year's gift, my 
little books, which I have translated into German, 
in this abode of justice. And I wish for you, not, 
as is often wished, a life of tranquillity and repose, 
but just, serious, noble, and laborious affairs, in 
which, for the good of mankind, you may have 
an opportunity of displaying your heroic heart. 
May God give you happiness and safety. 

'Written at Ebernburg on New Year's evening' 
(31st December 1520). 



XXI. 

HE relations between Hutten and Luther 
became more and more intimate : they 
communicated to each other their plans, 
their fears, and their hopes, and drew from these 
frequent communications, new strength and firmer 
courage. In the opening of the year 1521, Hutten 




108 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

wrote that beautiful letter to his dearest brother 
and friend, Martin Luther, the invincible herald of 
the word of God. ' You would,' tie says, ' assuredly 
compassionate me, if you knew all the opposition 
against which I have to contend. Whilst I seek to 
attach new friends to our cause, 1 many of the old 
ones fall away from it : so much are the souls of men 
still under the dominion of that prejudice, that to 
attack the Pope is to commit an unpardonable 
crime. Francis of Sickingen alone remains faithful 
to us ; and they have almost succeeded in shaking 
even his fidelity, by showing him, as coming from 
you, monstrous things, which you certainly have 
never written. I have effaced that impression by 
reading your works to him, with which, until the pre- 
sent moment, he was very little acquainted. He has 
not been slow to appreciate them, and, beholding 
the grandeur of your undertaking, he has exclaimed, 
filled with admiration, "Is it really possible that a 
single man has the courage to attack all the past ; 
and if he has sufficient courage, will he have suffi- 
cient power ? " He is so full of enthusiasm for the 

1 It is important to observe, that Hutten did not admit all the doc- 
trines of Luther. The theory of predestination instinctively repelled 
him ; but he knew that if the Romanists opposed Luther, it was less 
on account of his dogmatic opinions than on account of his violent in- 
vectives against their corruption and rapacity. ' Thus,' as he himself 
says, ' I accept the title of Lutheran, in order that they may know that 
I am ever faithful to the cause of truth and liberty.' 



CORRESPONDENCE WITH LUTHER. 109 

cause, that scarcely an evening passes without his 
requesting me to read to him one or other of our 
books. His friends advise him to abandon so peril- 
ous a path. "No," he exclaims, u the cause which 
I defend is neither dangerous nor doubtful. It is 
the cause of God and of truth : it is the fatherland 
itself which commands us to listen to the counsels 
of Luther and of Hutten, and to maintain the true 
faith." However, I ought not to conceal from you, 
that Sickingen has hitherto prevented me from 
taking any active steps against our enemies. He 
believes that we must wait the judgment of the 
Emperor, and what may be decided with regard to 
our affairs after the Diet of Worms. So far as I 
am concerned, I have little confidence in the Em- 
peror: he is always surrounded by priests, and 
selects from among them his most cherished coun- 
cillors. They take advantage of his youth, and urge 
him to adopt measures which, certainly, will not be 
for his advantage. Sickingen, on the contrary, 
believes that the Emperor will decide, as he ought to 
do, at Worms, with regard to these faithless Popes 
and their supporters. Many even predict, that at 
that Diet, a complete rupture will take place between 
the Pope and the Emperor ; and you may rely upon 
it that Sickingen will lend all his influence to bring 
this about, and he has great credit with the Em- 
peror They have thrice burnt your books ! 



1 10 ULKICH VON HUTTEN. 

But what matters it? The people gather more 
courage every day. Throughout the whole country 
your name is never pronounced without veneration, 
whilst Aleander (31) was nearly being stoned at 
Mayence. I have written to Spalatin, to induce 
him to endeavour to ascertain the designs of your 
prince : endeavour yourself, I entreat you, to ascer- 
tain these. It would be a great point for us to 
learn that, in case of need, he would come to our 
assistance, or at least would give us an asylum in 
his states. As soon as I shall be assured on this 
point, I shall fly to you ; because I cannot resist my 
desire to see at length a man whom I love so much 
for his virtues.' 




XXII. 

HE Diet of Worms had a decisive influence 
upon subsequent events. It drove, it 
compelled to violence, a revolution which 
had hitherto been purely pacific, and which bade fair 
to transform the whole face of Germany by the 
force of argument alone. We do not, then, depart 
from our subject when we pause for a little to con- 
sider it. Besides, we shall thus contemplate one 
of the most magnificent scenes in the drama of his- 
tory. 



THE DIET OF WORMS. Ill 

We have seen that, for Charles V., the question 
which agitated Germany, which shook to its deepest 
foundations the ancient fabric of Christian Europe, 
resolved itself into a somewhat paltry calculation 
of a purely material policy. Luther might serve 
him, either to hold the Pope in check, or to reward 
him for his alliance. This policy was frankly 
avowed by the imperial minister to the nuncio who 
brought him the bulls against Luther : ' The Em- 
peror will exert himself to the uttermost to do what 
is agreeable to the Pope, if on his side the Pope will 
show himself the friend of the Emperor, and will 
not negotiate with his enemies.' At Rome this was 
perfectly well understood. They therefore never 
attempted to work upon the conscience of Charles 
V. : they appealed to his interests alone ; and em- 
ployed means even still less justifiable. They put 
at the disposition of the legate Aleander, all the 
means of corruption which appeared to him likely 
to be successful in gaining over the ministers of the 
Emperor and in bribing the Diet. He bestowed 
on a bishop, who had great influence at court, a 
benefice already promised to another; he paid a 
secretary of the Emperor for good and secret services ; 
he even went the length of bribing the door-keepers, 
in order that they might intercept Luther's books. 
And he made a parade of all these villanies with 
the most barefaced impudence. He boasted of 



112 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

having obtained, hj cunning and activity, that the 
works of Luther should be burned in Flanders. 
4 The Emperor and his councillors,' he exclaimed, 
' will see the glare of the pile before they clearly 
understand that they have given the order to kindle 

it: 

The ability of this man was not, as we shall see, 
without its effect in obtaining the famous Edict of 
Worms. As to Charles V., they made sure of his 
concurrence in the following manner : — The Cortes 
of Arragon, after long efforts, had succeeded in ob- 
taining a papal brief which modified the organiza- 
tion and the procedure of the Inquisition, and 
assimilated them to the common law. The Inquisi- 
tion was the chief pillar of the Spanish crown ; all 
that tended to diminish its implacable and arbitrary 
rigour appeared to Charles V. to threaten the sta- 
bility of his throne. He therefore vehemently 
protested against the papal brief. The Pope re- 
voked it ; and, in return, the Emperor engaged to 
execute the bull against Luther (32). An instruc- 
tive and curious reconciliation : religious despotism 
clasps the hand of political tyranny ; the suspen- 
sion of all progress in Spain, is the price of the 
suppression of the Eeformation movement in Ger- 
many. There is an intimate connection between 
all liberties, and between all despotisms ! 

But in Germ an v, nothing could be done without 



THE DIET OF WORMS. 113 

the Diet. They feared its opposition ; because, 
for a century past, it had never assembled without 
directing against the corruptions of the Church, re- 
monstrances which were always useless, but whose 
energy was constantly increasing. They wished 
to make short work of the matter. Accord- 
ingly, one day, when a tournament had been an- 
nounced, and all the preparations made, the 
Emperor suddenly summoned the princes together, 
and read to them the bull against Luther, and the 
edict which was to put it into execution. We may 
imagine the excitement which this unexpected pro- 
ceeding produced among the assemblage. The 
Emperor wished immediately to publish the edict, 
according to the advice of the theologians, Aleander 
and Eck. 'He is condemned,' said they; 'what 
further is required ? ' But the Diet was more dim- 
cult to satisfy. Although, perhaps, the majority 
were not opposed to the condemnation, they felt 
strongly that that condemnation, pronounced in 
the absence of Luther, and without his having had 
an opportunity of defending himself, would be an 
outrage to the public conscience. They demanded 
that Luther should be cited, that he should have a 
safe-conduct, that he should be heard ; declaring, 
besides, that they would accept the edict if Luther 
persisted, not in his attacks against the corruptions 
of the church (on that point all were agreed with 

H 



•114 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

him), but ' in his doctrines, contrary to the faith 
which our fathers and ancestors have transmitted 
to us.' 

The citation was given with this understanding, 
and an imperial herald repaired to Wittemberg to 
seek Luther. Many hoped that that great man 
would retract, that he would content himself with 
insisting on the reformation of the church, so 
popular in Germany, and in fact so generally de- 
sired. But Luther had other designs : no con- 
sideration, no seduction, no personal fear, could 
make him desert what he considered to be the 
truth. 

He set out immediately in a carriage, with which 
the town of Wittemberg furnished him. By the 
way, he could read on all the walls the imperial 
mandate which condemned his books. This was 
well calculated to inspire apprehension ; and the 
imperial herald himself, distrusting the safe-con- 
duct, asked him at Weimar, whether he would not 
desire to return. At the first halting-place, a coun- 
cillor of his patron, the Elector of Saxony, came to 
him to say, that it would be better for him not 
to go farther, as he ran the risk of experiencing 
the fate of Huss. To all which the Reformer re- 
plied, ' Huss has perished, but not the truth. I 
shall go, if I should have against me as many devils 
as there are tiles on the house-tops of Worms ! ' 



THE DIET OF WORMS. 1 1 

On Thursday, the 16th April 1521, at mid-day, 
the warden of the gate-tower sounded the trumpet, 
to announce the arrival of Luther. The crowd 
threw itself upon his path. He sat in his carriage 
bareheaded, and in his monkish dress ; before him 
rode the imperial herald with his tabard, em- 
broidered with the imperial eagle, hanging over his 
arm. Luther contemplated the excited, agitated 
crowd with a serene countenance. He read in 
all eyes sympathy for his cause ; his courage rose 
to confidence ; and when he descended from his 
carriage, he cried, ' God will be with me.' 

On the morrow, he was summoned before the 
Diet. The assembly was numerous and splendid. 
The Emperor, surrounded by six electors, by all the 
lay and ecclesiastical princes, by the deputies from 
the cities, and by the most illustrious captains and 
councillors, expected Luther with visible curio- 
sity. At the sight of so magnificent an assemblage, 
the poor monk could not master his emotion. He 
spoke in a low, suffocated, almost unintelligible 
voice : many believed that he was terrified. He 
was asked if he was willing to defend all that was 
to be found in his books, or to retract something. 
He demanded delay for reflection. He was granted 
twenty-four hours. 

Next day he again appeared. It was late ; 
night had fallen ; the torches were lighted. The 



116 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 

assembly was still more numerous than on the 
previous occasion ; and the concourse of people was 
so great, that the princes scarcely found room to 
seat themselves. But now Luther was master of 
himself: his conscience gave him courage to raise 
his head in the presence of those princes before 
whom all bent the knee; he, too, felt himself a 
power, and desired to honour by his attitude the 
truth, of which he was the organ. There was 
no longer any trembling in his voice, any hesitation 
in his answers. When they repeated the question 
of the previous day, he replied in a firm, manly 
voice, everywhere audible. He divided his books 
into books of doctrine, books against the abuses of 
the See of Rome, and polemical books. ' To re- 
tract the first is impossible, since the bull itself 
finds much that is good in them ; to retract the 
second, would be to furnish the Romanists with the 
means of completely crushing Germany ; to retract 
the third, would be to encourage my adversaries in 
their struggle against the truth.' The official of 
Treves urged him not to refuse all retractation. 
* If Arius/ he said, 'had retracted certain errors, 
it would not have been necessary to burn his good 
books with his bad ones : they would find means to 
save his works, if he consented to expunge what 
had been condemned by the Council of Constance.' 
We see that Germany willingly subordinated the 



THE DIET OF WOKMS. 1 1 7 

infallibility of the Pope to that of councils. But 
Luther believed in neither the one nor the other. 
He answered, l A council also may err.' And, upon 
this being denied by the official, he offered to prove 
that councils might err, and had erred. They did 
not wish to begin that debate. The official de- 
manded, for the last time, of Luther, if he was will- 
ing to maintain all that was in his books, or to 
retract their contents, wholly or partially ; sternly 
declaring to him, that if he declined all retractation, 
the Empire would know well how to treat an 
obstinate heretic. Luther had expected, and was 
prepared for, a discussion, a refutation ; but when 
he saw that the sole question lay between his con- 
demning himself or being condemned, his noble 
heart became only the more determined. He re- 
plied, calmly, ' If I am not convicted of error by 
the text of the Holy Scriptures, I cannot, and I 
will not retract : my conscience is bound by the 
word of God. By that I hold ; I cannot do other- 
wise. May God help me. Amen.' 

The spectacle of that noble attitude thrilled 
through the heart of all Germany. She felt that 
she had a worthy representative in her apostle. 
Her warriors admired his courage. When he en- 
tered the hall of the Diet, the veteran Freundsberg 
clapped him on the shoulder in token of sympathy. 
During the sitting, the brave Eric of Brunswick, 



118 ULKICH VON HUTTEN. 

seeing him stifled by the heat, brought him beer in 
a silver cup. When he went out, he heard a voice 
exclaiming, ' Blessed be the mother who bore thee ! ! 
The princes visited and conversed familiarly with 
him in his retirement. Elsewhere, the opposition 
assumed a more menacing aspect. Billets were 
found in the Emperor's apartments bearing this 
inscription : ' Woe to the country whose king is a 
child.' Placards on the walls of the town, announced 
to the Romanists that 400 knights were leagued 
against them for the defence of oppressed honour 
and law, and the just cause of Luther. l I write 
badly, but I act with vigour. I have 8000 men at 
my back ! Bundschuh ! Bundschuh /....' That 
formidable war-cry of the Swabian peasants was 
recalled. Resounding at that place, at that mo- 
ment, it seemed to announce the alliance of the 
knights and of the peasantry in favour of reform, — 
an alliance often attempted, never realized. The 
courtiers felt themselves ill at ease in the midst of 
a population so violently excited. The wisest 
among them still wished to attempt a compromise. 
Also, when the Emperor proposed directly to the 
Diet to treat Luther as a convicted heretic, the Diet 
demanded a delay of some days. These were em- 
ployed in bringing all means to bear upon Luther. 
They entreated him to retract at least his opinions 
upon councils, and to accept the Emperor and the 



THE DIET OF WORMS. 119 

Diet as judges of his doctrine. To the first pro- 
posal he answered, ' Yes, Huss has been unjustly 
condemned ; ' to the second, ' I cannot accept men 
for judges of the word of God.' Nothing could 
shake his resolution, and he departed, leaving the 
Diet in the most violent agitation. 

A decision, however, remained to be taken. The 
Diet did not seem inclined to adhere to its former 
resolution. Many regretted it : the presence and 
the courage of Luther had excited vivid sympathy, 
and the unmistakeable expression of public opinion 
weighed upon the minds of a great number of the 
members of the Diet. The result of the definitive 
vote was, at any rate, doubtful. To turn it against 
Luther, his enemies had recourse to the means re- 
commended by Aleander, cunning and promptitude. 

For a long time there had been no dispute about 
anything. The Diet had finished its labours, and 
many of its members had gone away. On the 25th 
of May, the Emperor repaired to the hall of meet- 
ing, to go through the formality of the ratification 
of his decisions, and requested the Diet to protract 
its sittings for three days longer, in order to dispose 
of some affairs still pending. According to custom, 
the assembly escorted the Emperor, on his going out, 
as far as the episcopal palace, where he lodged. 
The Elector of Saxony and the Elector Palatine had 
already departed ; the other four Electors were pre- 



120 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

sent. At the palace they found the papal nuncios, 
who delivered to them briefs addressed to them. 
Whilst they were discussing this extraordinary pro- 
ceeding, the Emperor informed them that he had 
caused an edict to be drawn up with regard to 
Luther, in conformity with their previous decision, 
and ordered it to be read forthwith to the members 
of the Diet who were present. Either from being 
thus taken by surprise, or from conviction, no one 
made any objection ; and the Elector of Branden- 
burg admitted that the edict was really agreeable 
to the previously expressed opinion of the Diet. 
Aleander lost no time in drawing up the act. That 
very day he made two copies, one in Latin and the 
other in German ; and next day — a Sunday — he 
followed the Emperor even to the church, in order 
more speedily to obtain his signature. In short, to 
give a last specimen of his machinations : the edict 
was drawn up on the 26th of May ; Aleander found 
it useful to antedate it on the 8th May, a day on 
which the Diet still consisted of a sufficient number 
of members. 

Such is that famous legislative act, not submit- 
ted to the assembled Diet, not deliberated upon, 
not voted, but extorted by surprise from some mem- 
bers brought together by chance, many of whom 
would unquestionably have repudiated it if they 
had been able to consult together. ' Happy sur- 



THE EDICT OF WORMS. 121 

prise,' piously exclaims a Roman Catholic writer, 
' which has prevented the princes from perjuring 
themselves ! ' * 

The edict was as violent as possible. Luther 
was put under the ban of the Empire, as a member 
cut off from the church of God ; and all his adhe- 
rents, protectors, and friends were included in the 
same sentence. His writings, and those of his par- 
tisans, were to be burnt ; and in order to prevent 
any more copies from appearing, the censorship was 
established on all printed works. 

This edict, however, did not arrest the progress 
of the Reformation ; it did not deprive Luther of 
a single partisan : on the contrary, the public con- 
science revolted against such violence, and set itself, 
throughout all Germany, to oppose its execution. 
The circulation of the works of Luther and his 
friends went on increasing more and more, in spite 
of the censorship, in spite of the flames. One argu- 
ment which is incessantly reappearing under the 
pen of these writers, and w^hich seems to have pro- 
duced the most powerful effect, is this : ' Why 
have they not refuted Luther at Worms ? ' It was 
found impossible to persuade the strong sense of 
justice in the nation, to accept a condemnation as 
a substitute for a refutation. A swarm of pam- 

1 0. Riffel, Christliche Kirchengeschichte der neusten Zeit, t. i. p. 
214. 



122 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

phlets was circulated throughout the country : but 
the risk was great ; and all the authors remained 
anonymous. Hutten alone dared to sign his brochure. 
It assailed no less a person than Aleander himself, 
the author of the edict and the papal legate, and 
inflicted on him the severe chastisement of indignant 
patriotism and virtue. 1 



XXIII. 




UTTEN had not waited until this time, 
in order to stir still more profoundly 
public opinion, already so strongly ex- 
cited. Since the opening of the Diet, he had 
published four new dialogues : the Bull, the First 
Monitor, the Second Monitor, the Brigands. The 
Second Monitor and the Brigands are the most im- 
portant of these writings : there are none which 
throw more light on the projects of Hutten and his 
friends. The speakers of the Monitor are the 
Monitor and Sickingen. 

The Monitor warns Sickingen of the evil reports 
which are spread abroad with regard to him. They 

1 The greater part of this chapter is translated from Ranke's History 
of Germany at the time of the Reformation, one of those books which 
deserve to be better known in France. 



THE SECOND MONITOR. 123 

suspect him of heresy, because he protects Luther 
and entertains Hutten; they fear that he is pre- 
paring some enterprise against the Pope, the bishops, 
and the clergy : ' It is a dangerous game ; remember 
the proverb : No one has been the better for attack- 
ing the priests ! ' 

Sicking en. — ' That proverb has often lied. For 
proof of which, I need only refer to John Ziska, the 
invincible chief of the Hussites, in that long war 
against the priests. Has he not the renown of a 
great captain ? Has he not the glory of having de- 
livered his country from tyranny, purged Bohemia 
from these lazy priests and monks, and restored 
their goods in part to the heirs of the too generous 
donors ? Has he not freed his country from the 
exactions of the Popes, and avenged the death of 
Huss, that holy man assassinated by the priests ? 
And is it not well known that, in all his great 
undertakings, he never consulted his own advan- 
tage, — that he thought only of his native country 
and of religion ? Besides, after having been for- 
tunate in all his enterprises, he died amidst the 
grief and tears of his fellow-countrymen.' 

The Monitor. — ' It would really seem as if you 
were about to follow his example.' 

Sickingen. — f And why not ? If the clergy will 
not listen to our counsels, nor to our brotherly 
rebukes, we must at last have recourse to force.' 



124 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

The Monitor. — ' But supposing that the Emperor 
forbids you ? ' 

Sickingen. — ' I shall not the less persist in my 
design. I act like those who, before constructing 
an edifice, calculate for a long time what it will 
cost, but who, the plan once determined on, carry 
it out to the end. Assuredly, I shall pay no atten- 
tion to what perfidious or ignorant councillors now 
advise the Emperor, but to what he will approve 
of hereafter, when he will be older, and entertain 
more mature views. If our young Emperor had a 
burning fever, and asked me to give him cold 
water, should I give it to him ? I am too faithful 
and devoted a servant to do anything that could 
hurt him : to refuse to obey, is often the truest 
obedience. It would be best that the Emperor 
should not intermeddle with religious affairs. If, 
according to the selfish counsel of priests, he 
had not interfered with the natural course of 
events, the knowledge of Gospel doctrine, spread 
abroad by Luther, would have gradually improved 
mankind, have restored the imperial dignity, and 
driven the perverse and pernicious Romanists from 
the whole of Germany. His resolutions are in the 
hand of God. But, for my part, I shall always 
seek to serve rather than to flatter him. If he 
commanded me to do something against my con- 
science, I would publicly refuse obedience ; for we 



THE SECOND MONITOR. 125 

must obey God rather than man, especially when 
the matter relates to religion. If, then, I see that 
there is no hope from the Emperor, I shall attempt 
the enterprise at my own risk and peril, whatever 
may be the result.' 

The Monitor. — ' And towards that noble under- 
taking, you have a warm counsellor in your friend 
Ulrich von Hutten. He cannot endure any delay, 
and takes all the trouble in the world to draw down 
the tempest upon the heads of his enemies.' 

Sickingen. — ' Yes, assuredly : his services are pre- 
cious to me ; he has the spirit necessary for such 
undertakings.' 




XXIV. 

HAT, then, was the support upon which 
the two friends relied ? The Emperor 
was led away by the exigencies of his 
political position, and by the impatient promptings 
of his ambition; the princes were indifferent, timid, 
or gained over by the court of Rome. What then 
remained ? Two great forces : the nobility and the 
people, especially the people of the cities ; for, at 
that epoch, scarcely even the bravest dared to con- 
template the mighty mass of the rural population, 



126 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

so violently agitated by the breath of the Reforma- 
tion. The important question was, to ascertain if 
a combination could be effected between the two, 
in some degree, regular forces of lay society, 
divided by so many prejudices, and by so many 
just grounds of complaint. This was one of the 
subjects which most profoundly occupied the mind 
of Hutten. The first attempt which he made to 
bring about so necessary a reconciliation, was the 
dialogue which had for its title the Brigands. The 
speakers are Hutten, Sickingen, and an agent of 
the great house of the Fuggers (33) at Augsburg. 
Hutten finds fault with the merchant, because he 
has termed the knights brigands. Sickingen inter- 
poses, calming his fiery friend, and thus addressing 
himself to the merchant : 

' So far as concerns myself, I have no need of 
justification. Germany knows it, and history has 
taken note of it. I have never done harm to any 
man without declaring war against him. — The 
Merchant : But by what right do you declare war ? 
That reason does not excuse you. — Sickingen : How ! 
do you say that we have no right to make war 
after declaring it ? — The Merchant : No ! not with- 
out the permission of the princes. — Sickingen: I 
shall then ask you : must we preserve the nobility ? 
— The Merchant : Yes, I think so. — Sickingen : Are 
the princes alone noble? — The Merchant: No, 



THE BRIGANDS. 127 

assuredly. I reckon also among the nobility the 
counts, and even the simple knights, such as you 
are, so far as you act honourably ; for it has for a 
long time been my opinion, that nobility consists 
only in acting honourably. — Sickingen: You are 
right. I also think that honour and virtue are not 
hereditary ; and that whoever has been guilty of a 
shameful action, ought to be blotted out from the 
ranks of the nobility, even were he a prince. Not 
to imitate the glorious ancestors who have con- 
quered nobility, is to lose it. I utterly despise all 
the pretended nobles, who have many quarterings, 
but few personal services — many ancestral pictures, 
and no crown around their own foreheads. I shall 
never consider as my equal, were he my nearest 
relation, a man with a stain on his life. But what 
do you term virtue in the nobility ? — The Merchant: 
Valour is commonly considered to be so. — Sickingen : 
You mean warlike virtue ; but what, in your 
opinion, is warlike virtue ? — The Merchant : Valour 
in the service of the right cause. — Sickingen : Very 
good ; and I draw this conclusion : all men are 
equal by nature ; but the most virtuous are the 
most noble. You will also grant me, that a man is so 
much the more noble, just in proportion as he more 
warmly defends the right. And lastly, you will 
agree that if the defence of the right belongs more 
especially to princes, it also belongs to nobles, since 



128 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

it is by that, according to your own statement, that 
they are noble. — The Merchant: Agreed, but on 
condition that you fight only under the orders of 
the princes. — Sickingen : But if they never order, if 
they are all absorbed in their private interests, in- 
different to the general well-being, shall we not 
then make war ourselves ? — The Merchant : It must 
be admitted that, under these circumstances, 
you possess the right to do so. — Sickingen: And 
if, when some one wishes to do you wrong, I 
avert that peril without awaiting the order of 
the princes, shall I not be acting rightly? — The 
Merchant : That would only be just. — Sickingen : 
You see, then, how far it would be doing us wrong, 
to deprive us of the only thing by which we are 
noble, — 1 mean the power of defending the right by 
arms. Because therein is our law and our duty : 
to succour the unfortunate, to raise up the op- 
pressed, to avenge those who have been unjustly 
injured, to make head against the wicked, to pro- 
tect widows and orphans. We do not blush to 
rank behind the princes ; and we serve them faith- 
fully, when we have voluntarily agreed to serve 
them. Beyond that, we recognise no other lord 
than the Emperor : in him we see the defender of 
the public liberty. But if the 'Emperor himself 
ordered us to do something contrary to right and 
justice, it would be our duty to refuse him obedi- 



THE BRIGANDS. 129 

ence. He would himself tell you, if you could ask 
him, that he has not the right to order anything 
unjust, or to oppose anything just ; and if the 
Emperor possesses not that right, how should the 
princes possess it ? ' 

I doubt whether this somewhat sophistical 
apology converted the merchant. How very differ- 
ent were the facts of the case from that ideal of 
nobility, which the knight depicts in such magnifi- 
cent language ! The claim of the nobles to main- 
tain their turbulent anarchy, explains the backward- 
ness of the citizens of the great towns in this first 
episode of the long war for liberty of conscience. 
But it is the biographer's duty to combine all the 
traits which form the picture, and not to remove 
men from the midst of the age in which they lived 
and acted, in order to give them the ideas and the 
passions of another time. 

Sickingen at length assumes the offensive. ' The 
great robbers are not those whom they hang on a 
gibbet: they are the priests and the monks, the 
chancellors and the doctors, the great merchants, 
especially the Fuggers.' — The Merchant: 'How? 
We thieves ! We, who so thoroughly detest the 
knights on account of their brigandage ! ' — Sickin- 
gen : i Yes, assuredly ; you do not steal by open 
force, but by secret and underhand practices. Have 
not your masters, the Fuggers, by all means, just 



130 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

and unjust, excluded the other merchants from 
commerce with the Indies, in order that they alone 
may be enriched by the importation of commodi- 
ties equally injurious to the health and the morals 
of the country? Is it not the wish of all good 
citizens to see this public plague driven out ? Or 
will you venture to maintain that it is not theft 
to inundate Germany with money under the just 
weight, to monopolize the traffic with the Indies, 
to add to it the traffic in papal dispensations, in 
indulgences, in benefices, — to pour forth upon Ger- 
many all these drugs, and to receive in exchange 
for them solid crowns ? ' 

1 But still more dangerous robbers are the doctors 
and the chancellors of the princes, all these Rabu- 
lists (34), who, of late years, have pounced upon 
our native country. Old men often recall the happy 
time when that leprosy was unknown; and now 
they are everywhere, they steal everywhere — in the 
courts of the princes, in the senates and assem- 
blies of the towns, in every meeting, public or 
private, in peace, in war ! And as to those who pre- 
side in the tribunals ! They are always seeking the 
right and never finding it; they mould the laws 
like soft wax, and turn them to their own profit : 
between their venal hands the unjust becomes the 
just They do more harm to Germany than the 
most disastrous war ; and it would be better to cut 



THE BRIGANDS. 131 

short our processes by arms than by their false and 
contradictory science. "What happiness, if we could 
one day see all these doctors chased away, and all 
their books burnt ! ' 

' Let us, however, be just : there are robbers still 
more pernicious in our unhappy country ; such are 
the bishops, the canons, and the monks. Not con- 
tent with having appropriated the richest and most 
beautiful part of German}^, with being gorged with 
wealth which they waste in criminal wars and 
in the most shameful pleasures, they corrupt the 
intellect and the heart of the people by superstition 
and by their evil example, abhor the science which 
would open the eyes of the nation, and render still 
more intolerable the yoke of the Popes, whose crea- 
tures they are. Have they not the audacity to 
maintain that the Vicar of Christ may change, ex- 
tend, and limit the doctrine of the Saviour; condemn 
the most virtuous men ; sanctify the most wicked ; 
do, or omit to do, whatever he chooses, without 
any daring to complain ! When we shall have 
broken the chains of the Romish tyranny, forced 
the priests to perform their duties, applied to the 
public use the revenues of the bishops, the canons 
and the monks, and the treasures of the churches, 
and abolished all the religious orders, then only will 
Germany be free and happy. But the princes are 
the obstacle in the way of this result, because 



132 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

they have their relations in the bishoprics, and 
fear to see them thrown on their hands.' 

The Merchant : i Therefore it is that such a 
noble and useful enterprise cannot be conducted to 
a successful issue.' Hutten : c It is so much the 
more necessary that the knights should make the 
most favourable arrangement that they can with the 
cities, and should conclude an alliance with them. 
The cities are rich and powerful, and full of ardour for 
liberty. With their concurrence we can commence 
the war, the most just of wars, against our tyrants ; 
for, if we have always considered it a duty to combat 
every description of tyranny, how much more ought 
we to rebel against those tyrants w T ho attack not 
only our property, but also our faith and our re- 
ligion, and w T ho snatch from us the truth, and wish 
to destroy us body and soul ! For my own part, 
what I desire is, that this war should begin to-day 
rather than to-morrow.' 

And Sickingen calmly replies : ' Assuredly I 
shall second you with all my power when the 
moment shall have come. But you are in too great 
a hurry : if we yielded to your impatience, we 
should be crushed at the commencement of our 
undertaking. Besides, you have no cause to fear 
that this war will be too long delayed. By Luther 
and by you, Germany has been awakened from the 
profound sleep in which she was wrapped. The 



THE PEINCES AND THE REFORMATION. 133 

hour approaches which will be the most favourable 
for this great work.' 



XXV. 




HAVE given the greater part of this 
dialogue, because it explains the senti- 
ments of the two friends, their projects, 
and the assistance upon which they believed that 
they might rely. Their enterprise failed ; and the 
triumph of religious liberty came from a quarter from 
which no one expected it. The Eeformation had 
made especial progress in the country, in the cities, 
and among the lower ranks of the nobility : the 
princes were hostile or indifferent to it. Besides 
placing their younger sons in the best bishoprics, 
they found the court of Rome very complaisant in 
granting all the concessions which they coveted : 
history informs us that the first secularizations 
of church property were made without opposition 
on the part of the Pope, in the most Catholic coun- 
tries, — in Bavaria, for example, and in the here- 
ditary estates of Austria. The princes were also 
well aware of the fact, that, at the root of the 
Reformation, in its early period, there was a mighty 
movement of national unity, entirely opposed to 
the constitution of principalities, and to the estab- 



134 TJLR1CH VON HUTTEN. 

lishment of that oligarchical government which, for 
more than a century, the Electors had not ceased 
to aim at. What was necessary to change all this ? 
Two things : the ruin of the lesser nobility by the 
defeat of Sickingen ; and the determination of the 
Emperor to side with the Pope, to refuse the sup- 
port which the religious revolution offered him, 
and to throw himself, the representative of national 
unity, into the arms of the foreign oppressor. At 
this time, some of the princes declared themselves 
in favour of the Reformation ; and if, in so doing, 
they followed the impulse of their consciences, it is 
not the less certain that, for them, the Reformation 
was also a political instrument which led them to 
the goal at which they aimed. But none then fore- 
boded the impending revolution of the wheel of for- 
tune. Hutten, who was always an enemy to political 
selfishness, and Sickingen, the last and most illus- 
trious representative of the lesser nobility against the 
sovereignty of the princes, foresaw it less than any. 
It would seem that, after the edict of Worms, they 
ought to have lost all hope of obtaining the assist- 
ance of the Emperor. His support was, however, 
so necessary, and the idea of which he was the in- 
carnation was so rooted in their hearts, that they 
unceasingly returned to it. For a moment, they 
might yet believe that it would be possible to gain 
him over to their cause. 



GLAPIO. 135 

Charles V., after having sacrificed Luther to the 
Pope, in order to make an enemy the more to Francis 
I., wished to make use of the talents of Sickingen, 
the energy of Hutten, and their influence over the 
nobility, for the same purpose. He sent to them, 
at the castle of Ebernburg, his confessor, Glapio. 
Glapio was really a very enlightened man, and as 
thoroughly convinced as any one could be, of the 
necessity of applying a remedy to the diseases of 
the church. It is said that he had menaced Charles 
with the wrath of Heaven if he did not correct 
them ; but when he saw the tendency of Luther s 
doctrines, he became one of his most vehement 
persecutors. It may well be believed, however, 
that he showed himself in quite another light to 
the two friends. i Never,' says Hutten, l was there 
a greater hypocrite ; everything about him was de- 
ception — the expression, the eyes, the mouth, the 
speech, and the gestures. He suited himself to all 
situations, and changed according to circumstances. 
"It is certain," said he to us, "that Luther has 
opened the gate through which all Christians have 
arrived at the true knowledge of the holy Scrip- 
tures." And when I demanded of him what fault 
he had committed that could be put in competi- 
tion with such a benefit, he replied, " In truth I 
see none." And, notwithstanding, he has insisted 
more vehemently than any one, that Luther should 



136 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 

be condemned without being allowed an opportu- 
nity of justifying himself, without even a hearing.' 

It is improbable that this singular ambassador 
would have gained over the two friends, if they had 
not seen, in the overtures made by the Emperor, a 
last chance of attaching him to their party. Sickin- 
gen raised an army of 3000 cavalry and 12,000 
infantry. He wished, by a bold march, to penetrate 
into the heart of France ; but the Count of Nassau, 
to whom he held a subordinate command, insisted 
upon besieging Mezieres. There, Bayard and Sic- 
kingen, the two last representatives of the chivalry 
of France and Germany, worthy of each other's 
rivalry and of each other's friendship, found them- 
selves opposed. The Imperialists were repulsed. 
Sickingen lost in this expedition the sum he had 
expended in raising his army, and the hope of 
attaching the Emperor by gratitude for his services. 

The desire of wiping out the stain given to his 
reputation by this defeat, and perhaps also of re- 
cruiting his exhausted finances, added to the reli- 
gious motives which impelled Sickingen to com- 
mence the war against the priests ; because it must 
be admitted that this hero loved money, and liked 
to amass it. But the aid of the Emperor hopelessly 
gone, it became only the more necessary to com- 
bine all the elements of opposition. The Rhenish 
knights, assembled at Landau on the summons of 



THE NEW KAKSTHANS. 137 

Hutten and Sickingen, formed a league for the de- 
fence of their interests, and undoubtedly, also, for 
those of the Reformation : they elected Sickingen as 
their chief. At the same time, a number of writings 
were circulated among the people, in order to rouse 
them to action. Among these, there is one of 
which Hutten appears to be the author, and which 
deserves to occupy our attention. It is still in the 
form of a dialogue, entitled the New Karsthans, the 
supplement to another Karsthans, written in the 
Alsacian dialect by an unknown author. It ap- 
pears, however, that this Karsthans was a real and 
a popular personage, a peasant who traversed the 
countries bordering on the Rhine, preaching the 
doctrines of Luther. 

The speakers in the New Karsthans are Sickin- 
gen and the peasant. The knight asks the latter 
why he has an air of so much anxiety. 4 How can 
I be gay with these priests, who harass us in every 
way ? I no longer know what to do ; and if this 
lasts, I shall forget myself grossly ; for truly their 
conduct passes a joke.' Sickingen exhorts him 
to take courage, and tells him that the face of 
affairs may, before long, be entirely changed. But 
the peasant has not much hope. Then follows a 
dialogue, in which the speakers, by turns, expose 
the exactions of the priests, their avarice, their 
luxury, their whole conduct, so opposed to the doc- 



138 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

trines of Christ. Karsthans frequently interrupts 
himself in order to exclaim : ' Ah ! then it will 
truly be necessary that afflictions come!' Both 
are agreed that the Pope is Antichrist, that the 
nobility and the people are ruined by the priests, 
and that this state of things cannot last. It will 
therefore be necessary to employ force if the priests 
will not listen to reason. ' He was no fool, that 
Ziska,' says the peasant, l when he demolished the 
churches ; if he had left them standing, his predic- 
tion to the Bohemians would assuredly have been 
verified. He said to them : " Leave the nests, and 
in ten years you will find the birds " (35). I cannot 
help admiring him for having chased away and 
extirpated all the monks, these insatiable slug- 
gards, from whom come all our woes.' Sickingen 
is also of opinion that the chapters, convents, and 
perpetual foundations, must be suppressed.— Karst- 
hans : c That would have happened a long time 
ago to the whole brood, if the nobility had been 
willing ; but you were not willing.' — At the end of 
the dialogue are thirty articles, gages of the alliance 
solemnly sworn between Karsthans and the knights 
Hulfreich and Heintz. They are of extreme auda- 
city, and we afterwards find them among the docu- 
ments of the peasants, in their great insurrection. 

I can only mention a poem addressed to the free 
towns, to induce them to combine with the lesser 



THE WAR OF RELIGION BEGINS. 139 

nobility against the usurpations and violence of the 
princes, and a letter of Hutten to the town of 
Worms, which we may consider as an overture 
made by Sickingen to his oldest enemies. At that 
critical moment, the two knights perhaps felt, in 
the same degree, the desire of strengthening their 
cause by gaining new allies, and that of reconciling 
themselves with their former enemies. Men do not 
begin so mighty an enterprise without bethinking 
them of the chance of death. 

After the publication of these last mentioned writ- 
ings, the war of religion commenced, to be no more 
interrupted, except by truces, until 1648. Who 
can deny the oceans of blood which that age-long 
war cost Germany and the whole of Europe? (36). 
But it is the fatality of history that the past may 
not give way to the future without violence. Must 
the truth therefore hide her face, must the future 
be kept back,, must progress be arrested ? May the 
blood shed fall upon the heads of those who have 
not had the wisdom to withdraw in time ! And 
we who, after having given so many examples to 
the world, are to-day reduced to receive them, may 
that solemn, heroic strife confirm us in our faith ! 
The dead alone sleep in their tombs; the living 
live ; and to live is to strive, and, alas ! to suffer. 
Happy those who, in times of civil strife, and of 
wars for conscience' sake, strive and suffer for the 



140 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

truth ! The champions of the future, happy, even 
in their sufferings ! 




XXYI. 

VARIETY of causes contributed to the 
failure of the first war of the Eeformation. 
The two friends and their ardent associ- 
ates at Ebernburg had calculated everything, ex- 
cept time, which matures the thoughts of men, and 
ripens their fruits. And then, too, it must be con- 
fessed, that their foundation was not laid on firm 
ground. To unite the reformation of religion with 
the restoration of the nobility, was to seek to attach 
the future to the past, the living to the dead. In 
this way, the Eeformation made itself suspected by 
the cities and by the peasantry, as well as odious 
to the princes. It aspired to give an impulse to the 
world along the path of progress, and itself retro- 
graded several centuries. Political and religious re- 
formation assuredly ought not to be separated ; but 
it was the misfortune of that early period, that the 
Eeformation allied itself to a policy contradictory 
to its instincts, and to the wants of the age. Hut- 
ten wished to give a mighty impulse to liberty, as 
all his writings testify. Emancipated from the 



SICKINGEN ATTACKS TREVES. 141 

prejudices of the nobility, he boasts of the liberal 
spirit of the towns, and praises it on every occa- 
sion. He even stretches out the hand of friendship 
to the passion for independence, which smouldered 
among the peasantry. And he would not have 
given utterance to that cruel saying of Luther: 
* Better that all the peasants should perish, than 
that the princes and the magistrates should suffer 
any injury ; for the peasants have taken up the 
sword against the will of God ! ' But his friends 
and allies had not shaken off their ancient hatreds 
and their hereditary pride : what they especially 
wished, was the re- establishment of the feudal 
anarchy crushed by the sovereignty of the princes ; 
and it was this that the peasantry (37) and the 
citizens of the great towns detested above every- 
thing. From that unhappy alliance resulted the 
ruin of the plans so long organized. Besides, 
Luther, who. possessed political tact in a high 
degree, refused to combine with his friends. c The 
Word has conquered the world,' he exclaimed ; ' the 
Word shall save it.' Upon which Hutten replied, 
1 Our paths are different : as for me, I am influenced 
by purely human considerations ; while you, more 
perfect, place everything in the hands of God ! ' 

War resolved upon, Sickingen did not long 
hesitate as to which enemy he should first attack. 
He had an old quarrel to settle with the Arch- 



142 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

bishop of Treves, and he counted on finding allies 
among the inhabitants of the country. It was 
against him that he directed his forces. To mark 
clearly the aim and the spirit of his enterprise, he 
gave as the watchword to his army : Let the will of 
the Lord be done ! And he addressed the following 
manifesto to the troops of the Archbishop : ' Dear 
brethren and neighbours, wherefore do you march 
against me ? Is not my cause yours ? I come to 
deliver you from the antichristian yoke of priests, 
to bring you the light of the Gospel, and to make 
you enjoy Christian liberty, and yet you fight 
against me ! Like men attacked by a mortal ma- 
lady, who will not submit to be cured ! Reflect that 
you are fighting against Christ and His Gospel, and 
not against me ! For Christ and His Gospel I 
brave death ! May the will of the Lord be done ! ' 

Sickingen encountered a resistance which he did 
not anticipate ; and the succours which ought to have 
arrived from Cleves, Cologne, and Brunswick, were 
crushed before they could join him. At the same 
time, he learned that the Count Palatine and the 
Elector of Hesse, were advancing to give him battle 
under the very walls of Treves. He was compelled 
to raise the siege. The princes hotly pursued him, 
and successively destroyed all the castles of his par- 
tisans. 

As to Sickingen, firmly resolved to prosecute the 



DEATH OF SICKINGEN. 143 

war, but feeling all its perils, lie separated himself 
from those of his friends who were most compro- 
mised, especially from those who, like Hutten and 
(Ecolampadius, had everything to fear, and whose 
genius was necessary to the cause. Then he shut 
himself up in the castle of Landstuhl, which was con- 
sidered impregnable, and in which he hoped to be 
able to sustain a long siege, and wait the coming of 
the promised reinforcements. But the besiegers' 
cannon soon beat down the walls, and battered the 
castle into a mass of ruins. Sickingen himself was 
mortally wounded by the fall of a fragment of wall. 
He made up his mind to capitulate, demanding, 
according to custom, that he should be allowed to 
go forth free. The princes refused. ' I shall not be 
their prisoner long,' he exclaimed, and surrendered 
at discretion. He had scarcely sufficient strength 
remaining to sign the capitulation, The princes 
found him dying, stretched under a vault, sole relic 
of the castle. The Archbishop of Treves said to 
him, ' Wherefore, Franz, have you attacked me 
and my poor people ? ' Sickingen replied, ' I have 
an account to render to a more powerful Lord than 
you.' His chaplain asked if he wished to confess him- 
self. He replied, ' I have confessed myself to God in 
my conscience.' The chaplain recited the prayers 
for the dying, and raised the host. The princes 
uncovered themselves, and fell upon their knees. 



144 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 

At that moment the hero expired. The princes 
repeated a Pater for his soul. 1 




XXYIL 

N leaving Sickingen, Hutten and (Eco- 
lampadius directed their steps towards 
Switzerland. Without resources, on ac- 
count of his having given up his fortune to his 
family, without a country, without a secure refuge, 
Hutten nevertheless refused a pension of 400 
crowns offered him by Francis I., with the right of 
choosing his place of residence. His patriotism 
recoiled, even in that distress, from the idea of 
becoming a pensioner on the bounty of the Em- 
peror's enemy. 

Hutten was warmly welcomed at Basle. The 
members of the Council, the whole population, 
thronged around the proscribed unfortunate. Eras- 
mus alone, his oldest friend, he whom Hutten had 
once so highly praised, and who formerly had been 
so proud of his praises, kept aloof from him. He 
begged Hutten not to visit him, if it was not 
absolutely necessary for him to do so. And subse- 
quently, after the death of Hutten, he had the 

1 Ranke, following the Chronicle of Flersheim. 



HUTTEN AND ERASMUS. 145 

effrontery to write to Melancthon, 'that he had 
kept at a distance from Hutten, because he only 
sought a nest in which to die ; ' so little is some- 
times the heart in the greatest intellects ! 

The Bishop and his adherents strongly insisted 
upon the removal of Hutten. The Senate, not 
daring to resist, but not wishing to mix themselves 
up with persecutions which they really detested, 
requested Hutten to leave the town for the sake of 
the public peace, and for his own personal safety. 
He repaired to Mulhausen. The magistrates and 
the citizens had already decided upon the establish- 
ment of the Reformation; and on the 12th March 
1523, he had the pleasure of assisting in the solemn 
suppression of the papal power in that city. The 
sympathy of which he was the object softened 
the bitterness of his patriotic griefs, and made him 
forget the malady, which travelling, the uncer- 
tainty of his .position, and so many misfortunes, 
had rendered more severe than ever, when he re- 
ceived a letter written by Erasmus, containing fresh 
insults against himself, mingled with perfidious 
attacks upon the principal Reformers. This new 
cowardice roused all his rage; and in a violent 
pamphlet, whose violence, however, was well de- 
served, he chastised the weaknesses and compro- 
mises of conscience, of the man who wished at 
once to preserve the tranquillity of his private life. 



146 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 

and to sow the seeds of war throughout the world 
by his writings ! 

The Reformation, however, was not established 
at Mulhausen without opposition, and without re- 
action. A disturbance, excited by the priests, 
compelled Hutten to seek another asylum. He 
took refuge at Zurich, beside Zwingli, the great 
Reformer. ' Is this,' writes the latter to Pirck- 
heimer, ' your terrible Hutten, that destroyer, that 
conqueror ! He who behaves with such sweet- 
ness towards his friends, towards little children, 
towards the humblest of men ! How can we be- 
lieve that a tongue so amiable has raised up such a 
tempest!' 

Hutten's strength was now far spent, and he 
already felt the approach of death. On the 12th 
May 1524, he writes to his friend Eoban Hess, at 
Erfurth : ' Will destiny never cease to pursue me 
so cruelly ! My only consolation is, that I have 
courage equal to my misfortunes. Germany, pros- 
trate as she is, can no longer afford me an asylum : 
a voluntary exile has conducted me to Switzerland, 

and will perhaps conduct me still farther 

I hope that God will one day reunite all the friends 
of the truth, now dispersed throughout the world, 
and that He will humble our enemies.' We love to 
cherish the belief, that this hope did not abandon 
the hero before his last hour, and that it sweetened 



DEATH OF HUTTEN. 147 

for him the bitterness of death, far from his native 
country, far from all he held dear. 

Zwingli had sent Hutten to the little island of 
Uffhau, to be under the care of the clergyman, who 
was well acquainted with medicine. There it was 
that he died, on the 29th August 1524, at the age 
of thirty-six, in the most complete destitution (38). 
He is buried in that green isle, at the extremity 
of the Lake of Zurich, at the feet of the mighty Alps. 
No monument marks the place where a hero re- 
poses ; and by an ironical caprice of destiny, the 
sepulchre of the vehement enemy of monasticism 
now belongs to the Convent of Einsiedeln. The 
tears of his friends were not wanting to his memory. 
Crotus Rubianus, Melancthon, Hess especially, 
bade him, with tender emotion, an eternal adieu. 
1 None was a greater enemy of the wicked ; none a 
more devoted friend of the good.' These words 
of a man who knew him thoroughly, 1 admirably 
sum up the life of one of the noblest champions of 
liberty ! 

1 Eoban Hess, Letter to Draco. 






NOTES 



THE TRANSLATOR 



TRANSLATOR'S NOTES. 






Note 1, page 18. 

Crotus Rubianus was the bosom friend of Hutten 
from childhood till death. He was an accom- 
plished scholar, and a fine vein of satire distin- 
guished his genius. In his discussions on philo- 
sophy and literature, Sir William Hamilton has 
proved, with a rare affluence of learning and acute- 
ness of argument, that Crotus Rubianus and Her- 
mannus Buschius had a share, along with Hutten, in 
the composition of the Epistoloe Obscurorum virorum. 

Note 2, page 18. 

Eitelwolf von Stein, who so early appreciated the 
dawning genius of Hutten, was a man of great 
intelligence and ability, as well as an excellent clas- 
sical scholar. He was born in Swabia in 1466, and 
was the first German knight who respected and 
cultivated the arts of peace, and who attempted to 
dispel the prejudices of the caste to which he be- 
longed, which led them to regard war as the only 



152 NOTES. 

occupation befitting men of noble birth, and to look 
upon all kinds of study with contempt and aversion. 
Eitelwolf had the principal share in founding the 
High School of Mayence, which he endeavoured to 
make the first seminary of its kind in Germany. 
He looked forward to the perfecting of this school 
as the chief occupation of his declining years, when 
he should have withdrawn from the cares of busi- 
ness, and the toils of war. But his premature death, 
in 1515, prevented this expectation from being ever 
realized. At the time of his death, he occupied 
the important offices of Governor and Hof-Marshall 
of the town of Mayence. Besides some letters, he 
published a work entitled, ' De laudibus heroum et 
virorum illustrium. ' 

Note 3, page 20. 

Ragius ZEsticampianus had the honour of being 
expelled from the University of Leipsic for his 
attachment to the new learning, and his opposi- 
tion to the effete scholasticism. The universities 
of Germany in general, were the bitterest persecu- 
tors of the revivers of classical learning. Like most 
corporations, they had a strong dislike to innovation. 

Note 4, page 23. 

Bilibald Pirckheimer, a celebrated historian and 
philologist, called by the Protestants of Germany 



NOTES. 153 

the Xenophon of Nuremberg, was born in that city 
of a patrician family in 1470. His father was 
councillor to the Bishop of Eichstaedt ; and at 
eighteen the young Pirckheimer joined the troops 
of the Bishop, in order to acquire a knowledge of 
military discipline. He soon, however, left the 
army and went to Italy, where he studied civil law 
at Padua and Pisa, at the same time acquiring a 
knowledge of Greek, mathematics, theology, and 
medicine. He spent seven years in Italy, and then 
returned to Nuremberg, where he became a mem- 
ber of the senate. He did not, however, definitively 
abandon the military career, and took the command 
of the contingent of troops furnished by the town of 
Nuremberg, to aid the Emperor Maximilian in his 
war against the Swiss. At the close of the war, he 
was created imperial councillor. He died at Nu- 
remberg in 1530. Pirckheimer had formed, with 
much care, a choice library of the best Greek and 
Latin authors, which was afterwards acquired by 
Lord Arundel, from whom it passed to the Duke of 
Norfolk, and subsequently to the Royal Society of 
London. 

Note 5, page 27. 

Budceus was born at Paris in 1467, the year of 
the birth of Erasmus. He was the most learned 
Frenchman of his time. By his advice the College 



154 NOTES. 

of France and the Royal Library were founded, and 
his fortune and credit were constantly at the service 
of the cause of learning. He was the restorer of 
Greek literature in France, and was taught Greek 
by Hermotymus, who took refuge in France after 
the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. He 
also received lessons from John Lascaris, a Greek 
of illustrious family, who came to France in 1494. 
On dismissing Hermotymus, Budseus presented 
him with 500 golden crowns. In 1497, the fame 
of Budseus for learning recommended him to Charles 
VIIL, who appointed him one of his secretaries. 
On the death of that monarch, he retired from court, 
and devoted himself to his favourite studies. He 
published various translations from the Greek and 
Latin classics. But his Treatise De Asse is his most 
famous work. No learned work ever obtained such 
immense and sustained success. A vast number of 
editions and abridgments of it have been published, 
and not long ago a copy of it on vellum sold for 
L.60. In August 1522, Budseus was elected by 
the municipal corporation of Paris to the office of 
prevot des inarchands ; and recently — in 1842 — the 
municipality of Paris erected a statue to his me- 
mory among those of their first magistrates. The 
works of Budeeus were collected and published, in 
four volumes folio, at Basle in 1557. It has been 
affirmed by some that Budseus had a tendency to- 



NOTES. 155 

wards the doctrines of Calvin; and it is certain 
that, after his death, his widow and the greater 
part of his numerous family abjured Catholicism 
and retired to Geneva. 

Note 6, page 28. 

Erasmus has wittily been termed l l'homme de 
repos a tout prix ; ' and Ranke says of him, ' his 
air was so timorous that he looked as if a breath 
would overthrow him, and he trembled at the very 
name of death.' He was the complete type of 
.feebleness of character united to vastness of in- 
tellect. No one more clearly discerned, or more 
powerfully described, the corruptions of Rome, the 
ignorance and depravity of the religious orders, the 
luxury and fanaticism of the bishops and theo- 
logians, the utter rottenness of the whole existing 
ecclesiastical fabric. Yet he was constantly seek- 
ing frivolous excuses to escape from the practical 
consequences of his own principles and writings ; 
and his shuffling, vacillating conduct, in spite of his 
splendid abilities, at length exposed him to the 
contempt both of the adversaries and the defenders 
of civil and religious liberty. 

Note 7, page 31. 

The Duke of Wurtemberg was connected with the 
reigning family of Bavaria, and also with the Em- 



156 NOTES. 

peror himself; and he was permitted to compound 
for the cowardly murder which he had committed 
by a payment of 27,000 florins. 

Note 8, page 36. 

Franz von Sicking en was born, in 1481, in the 
castle of Sickingen, situated in what is now the 
Grand Duchy of Baden. His father was a gentle- 
man of no very distinguished lineage, and was put 
to death by the Emperor Maximilian, on account of 
the troubles he had excited in the Empire. From 
his youth up Sickingen was a man of war; and the 
remarkable activity and ability which he displayed 
in making partisans, and in raising troops to avenge 
his father's death, made him, though but a simple 
knight, a formidable enemy to the Emperor. By 
force or by stratagem, he succeeded in making 
himself master of a number of strong places. The 
Duke of Lorraine, the town of Metz, and the Land- 
grave of Hesse, especially suffered from his attacks, 
and were at length obliged to pay him a sort of 
black mail. Sickingen was proud of his position 
as a free knight, relying only upon God, the Em- 
peror, and his own good sword. He proclaimed 
himself a general redresser of wrongs ; and his ex- 
ploits in succouring the oppressed, and supporting 
the feeble against the strong, spread his reputation 



NOTES. 157 

throughout Germany, where he was regarded as a 
sort of national hero. Yet there can be no doubt 
that he was sometimes guilty of culpable excesses, 
in the name of justice. He was often applied to by 
those who had been wronged, and who were too 
weak to right themselves ; and in compelling a 
powerful noble or an imperial city to pay a debt 
unjustly withheld from a private person, he was 
not always scrupulous about forms, or slow in the 
employment of force. One of his great objects 
seems to have been, to oppose and to humble the 
despotism and pride of the princes and clergy ; but 
it is by no means certain that he did not enter- 
tain ulterior views, and aim at bringing about a 
complete political revolution in Germany, which his 
position in that warlike age as the acknowledged 
flower of German chivalry, and the head and leader 
of the lesser nobility of the Empire, might perhaps 
have enabled him to accomplish. In the earlier 
part of his adventurous career, Sickingen was pre- 
sented to Francis I. as one well fitted to assist him 
in his canvass for the Empire ; and that ambitious 
monarch loaded him with presents, and conferred on 
him a pension of 1000 crowns. But Sickingen was 
offended that Francis had not also taken him into 
his confidence. c The king,' he said to Fleuranges, 
' but ill knows me, if he believes me more grateful 
for favours than for confidence. I have penetrated 



158 NOTES. 

his designs, which you and he have endeavoured to 
conceal from ine : he wishes to obtain the Empire : 
I have asked him for troops ; he has believed that 
I asked them in order to carry out my own ends, 
whereas I asked them solely with the view of 
attaching to his party a greater number of German 
gentlemen. Warn him that he will never be well 
served but by simple gentlemen like myself; if he 
negotiates with the great Princes and the Electors, 
they will take his money and will betray him.' A 
circumstance soon afterwards occurred, which pro- 
duced a total rupture between Francis and the great 
German partisan. A dispute had taken place be- 
tween some German and Milanese merchants. Sic- 
kingen constituted himself the ally of the former, 
and seized effects belonging to the latter to the 
value of L. 1000. On hearing of this act of sum- 
mary justice, Francis demanded that Sickingen 
should restore the goods ; and on the knight's send- 
ing a haughty refusal, he immediately stopped his 
pension. Upon this, Sickingen considered all his 
engagements to Francis cancelled, and from that 
period became one of his bitterest enemies ; and 
his opposition contributed not a little to the failure 
of the efforts of the French king to obtain the im- 
perial crown. Sickingen's subsequent invasion of 
France ; the siege of Mezieres, where the two model 
knights of France and Germany met face to face ; 



NOTES. 159 

his ill-judged and disastrous war against the Arch- 
bishop of Treves; and his death amidst the crumbling 
ruins of his stronghold ; are recounted with much 
spirit and ability in the narrative of M. Chauffour- 
Kestner. But we want in English a more detailed 
biography of this remarkable man, who, next toXJlrich 
von Hutten among the free knights of the German 
Empire, most powerfully contributed to the revival of 
letters and the reformation of religion, — a man who, 
though belonging only to the lesser nobility, exercised 
so powerful an influence on his own age, that some 
of his enemies termed him the anti-emperor, and 
others the anti-pope ; whose friendship was courted, 
and whose enmity was dreaded by all ; who was the 
type and model of German knighthood, and the 
chosen leader of the lesser nobility in their war 
against the princes ; who repeatedly offered Luther 
a safe and inviolable asylum, if he should be com- 
pelled to fly from the violence of his enemies ; and 
who received and protected (Ecolampadius and 
Hutten, until his own cause became desperate, and 
then sent them away, lest lives so precious to the 
Reformation should be involved in his destruction. 
It is true, indeed, that the splendour of Sickingen's 
character was somewhat dimmed by its faults. He 
was occasionally rash and headstrong, high-handed 
and heedless of law, as well as too much attached 
to the right of private war, so inimical to all good 



160 NOTES. 

and settled government. But these were the faults 
of the age in which he lived, and of the order to ' 
which he belonged ; and in spite of them, he would 
have been well entitled to appropriate the proud 
claim which Goethe has put in the mouth of Goetz 
von Berlichingen, in that masterly drama which so 
admirably depicts the state of Germany at the dawn 
of the Reformation : — ' Let them show me where I 
have preferred my interest to my honour. God 
knows, my ambition has ever been to labour for my 
neighbours as for myself, and to acquire the fame 
of a gallant and irreproachable knight, rather than 
princedoms or power ; and God be praised ! I have 
gained the meed of my labour.' 

Should the reception of the present sketch of the 
life of Ulrich von Hutten be such as to justify him 
in the attempt, the Translator hopes to supplement 
it by a biography of Franz von Sickingen. 

Note 9, page 38. 

' The character of Reuchlin,' says Sir William 
Hamilton, in his admirable article on the character 
and authorship of the Epistolce Obscurorum virorum, 
i is one of the most remarkable in that remarkable 
age. It exhibits, in the highest perfection, a com- 
bination of qualities which are in general found in- 
compatible. At once a man of the world and of 
books, he excelled equally in practice and specula- 



NOTES. 161 

tion; was a statesman and a philosopher, a jurist 
and a divine. Nobles, and princes, and emperors 
honoured him with their favour, and employed him 
in their most difficult affairs ; while the learned 
throughout Europe looked up to him as the " tri- 
lingue miraculum" the " phoenix liter uvum" the u eru- 
ditorum a\</>a." In Italy, native Romans listened 
with pleasure to his Latin declamation; and he 
compelled the jealous Greeks to acknowledge that 
" Greece had overflown the Alps." Of his country- 
men, he was the first to introduce the study of 
ancient literature into the German universities ; the 
first who conquered the difficulties of the Greek 
language ; the first who opened the gates of the East, 
unsealed the word of God, and unveiled the sanc- 
tuary of Hebrew wisdom. Agricola was the only 
German of the fifteenth century who approached 
him in depth of classical erudition; and it was not 
till after the commencement of the sixteenth that 
Erasmus rose to divide with him the admiration of 
the learned. As an Oriental scholar, Heuchlin died 
without a rival. Cardinal Fisher, who " almost 
adored his name," made a pilgrimage from England 
for the sole purpose of visiting the object of his wor- 
ship ; and that great divine candidly confesses to 
Erasmus, that he regarded Reuchlin as "bearing 
off from all men the palm of knowledge, especially 
in what pertained to the hidden matters of religion 

L 



162 NOTES. 

and philosophy." ' Frederick Schlegel, in his Lec- 
tures on Modern History, speaks in equally high 
terms of this l rare and profound spirit.' ' Reuchlin,' 
he says, ' one of the first scholars that Germany ever 
produced, and as much at home in Italy as in his 
native country, united all the literary culture, all 
the knowledge and learning, which either country, 
at the end of the fifteenth century, could supply. 
Not content with being the powerful critic and 
restorer of the then reviving Greek literature, he 
was, at the same time, for all Europe, the founder 
and creator of Oriental studies. Unlike later scho- 
lars and men of letters, however, these studies were 
not with him a mere matter of philology, of historical 
compilation, or of rhetorical brilliancy ; he directed 
all his researches to the highest object of knowledge, 
that which the inquiring mind must ever consider 
its principal concern, namely, the knowledge of 
man, of nature, and of God.' 

Note 10 7 page 45. 

Ortuinus Gratius was a man of considerable learn- 
ing, and held the important office of head of the 
College of Cologne. His own works are obsolete ; 
but he has been preserved, like a fly in amber, by 
the biting satire of Hutten and his friends. 

Jacob Hochstraten was prior of the Dominicans, 
and chief inquisitor at Cologne. Arnold of Tungern 



NOTES. 163 

was Dean of the Theological Faculty at Cologne, 
and drew up and published in 1512 a pamphlet 

entitled, c Articuli sive propositiones de Judaico favor e 
nimis suspectce ex libello teutonico Joannis Reuchlin! 

Note 11, page 45. 

4 Never,' says Sir William Hamilton, ' were un- 
conscious barbarism, self-glorious ignorance, intoler- 
ant stupidity, and sanctimonious immorality, so 
ludicrously delineated ; never did delineation less 
betray the artifice of ridicule. The Ejoistolce Obscu- 
rorum Virorum are at once the most cruel and the 
most natural of satires ; and, as such, they were 
the most effective. They converted the tragedy of 
Reuchlin's persecution into a farce ; annihilated in 
public consideration the enemies of intellectual 
improvement ; determined a radical reform in the 
German universities ; and even the friends of Luther, 
in Luther's lifetime, acknowledged that no other 
writing had contributed so powerfully to the down- 
fall of the papal domination.' 

Note 12, page 46. 

In England cleverer men than the Dominican 
prior mistook the Epistolce Obscurorum Virorum for 
a serious work, of which Sir William Hamilton re- 
lates the following curious anecdote : — ' Erasmus 
would have wondered less at the stupidity of the 



164 NOTES. 

sufferers, and more, perhaps, at the dexterity of the 
executioner, could he have foreseen that one of the 
most learned scholars of England, and the most 
learned of her bibliographers, should have actually 
republished these letters as a serious work ; and that 
one of our wittiest satirists should have reviewed 
that publication, without even a suspicion of the 
lurking Momus. And, what is almost equally asto- 
nishing, the misprision has never been remarked. 
In 1710, there was printed in London the most 
elegant edition that has yet appeared of the Epistolcs 
Obscurorum Virorum, which the editor, Michael 
Maittaire, gravely represents as the production of 
their ostensible authors, and takes credit to him- 
self for rescuing, as he imagines, from oblivion, so 
curious a specimen of conceited ignorance and un- 
conscious absurdity. The edition he dedicates 
" Isaaco Bicker staff, Armigero, Magnce Britannia? 
Censori" and Steele, in a subsequent number of 
the Tatler, after acknowledging the compliment, 
thus notices the book itself: " The purpose of the 
work is signified in the dedication, in very elegant 
language, and fine raillery. It seems this is a col- 
lection of letters, which some profound blockheads, 
who lived before our times, have „written in honour 
of each other, and for their mutual information in 
each other's absurdities '(!). They are mostly of 
the German nation, whence, from time to time, 



NOTES. 165 

inundations of writers have flowed, more pernicious 
to the learned world than the swarms of Goths 
and Vandals to the politic (!!). It is, me thinks, 
wonderful that fellows could be awake, and utter 
such incoherent conceptions, and converse with 
great gravity like learned men, without the least 
taste of knowledge or good sense. It would have 
been an endless labour to have taken any other 
method of exposing such impertinences, than by an 
edition of their own works, where you see their 
follies, according to the ambition of such virtuosi, 
in a most correct edition" (!!!). And so forth. 
The monks are no marvel after this.' 

Note 13, page 47. 

Dr Strauss, in his excellent life of Hutten, pub- 
lished in 1858, also adverts to the impossibility of 
rendering the Epistolce Obscurorum Virorum in a 
translation. ' Though we have honestly endea- 
voured,' he says, ' to give the reader an idea of the 
scope and contents, the form and design, of the 
Letters of Obscure Men, we must yet in conclusion 
make the disheartening confession, that we have 
undertaken what it is impossible properly to per- 
form No form in which the transla- 
tor may handle the German or any other language 
can reproduce the impression of the original.' 



166 NOTES. 

Note 14, page 48. 
The best authorities make Hutten the author of 
the greater portion of the work, but also assign the 
authorship of part of it to Crotus, and to Hermannus 
Buschius, who was the literary opponent and per- 
sonal foe of Ortuinus Gratius, to whom the Epis- 
tolcB Obscurorum Virorumi are addressed, and who 
is the principal victim of the satire. Dr Friederich 
Strauss gives Crotus Rubianus the credit of the 
happy idea of parodying, in the fictitious letters of 
the EpistolcB Obscurorum Virorum, the work which 
Reuchlin had published in 1514, under the title of 
EpistolcB illustrium virorum ad Reuchlinum, virum 
nostra cetate doctissimum, as a sort of testimonial 
in his favour from the most distinguished culti- 
vators of classical learning throughout Europe. 

Note 15, page 48. 

This was very ungrateful of Erasmus, who is said 
to have been cured of an imposthume in his face, 
by the laughter produced on reading the Epistola? 
Obscurorum Virorum. 

Note 16, page 55. 

Hutten was naturally proud of this gallant ex- 
ploit. He celebrates it in six epigrams, and boasts 
of it to the Emperor in the third of his philippics 
against the Duke of Wurtemberg. 



NOTES. 167 

Note 17, page 55. 
The diploma which conferred upon him that 
dignity, with all the privileges thereto attached, 
has been preserved : from this period Hutten as- 
sumes the title of Poeta et Orator. He is repre- 
sented on the frontispiece of his writings as com- 
pletely armed, and his brow girt with laurels ; 
later in his career, when the war against Rome 
had commenced, his portraits depict him with his 
hand on the hilt of his sword, which is half drawn 
from its sheath. Dr Strauss makes the date of 
Hutten's coronation 12th July 1517, and states 
that he was decorated with the laurel crown by 
the hand of Maximilian himself. 

Note 18, page 55. 

Conrad Peutinger was the first German man of 
letters who devoted himself to the study and collec- 
tion of antiquities. He was born at Augsburg, of 
a patrician family, in 1465. He studied law at 
Padua ; and at Rome, was a pupil of the celebrated 
scholar Pomponius LaBtus. Before leaving Italy, 
he became doctor both of the civil and canon 
law. On his return to his native town, he speedily 
distinguished himself both by the extent and 
variety of his learning, and by his capacity for 
business. He bestowed much time upon the study 
of inscriptions and antiques, and formed a precious 



168 NOTES. 

collection of books and manuscripts, which he freely 
threw open to the public. He had the principal 
share in establishing a society for the purpose of 
printing the works of the best Greek and Latin 
authors. Peutinger was much esteemed by his 
fellow-citizens, and was frequently deputed by them 
to maintain their interests with the Emperor Maxi- 
milian, who was so much pleased with his talents 
and learning, that he appointed him one of his 
councillors. In 1519, he was sent to congratu- 
late Charles Y. on his accession to the Empire ; 
and in 1521, he assisted at the Diet of Worms, 
when he succeeded in procuring a confirmation 
of the ancient statutes of Augsburg, and the ad- 
ditional privilege of coining money. He died in 
1547, at the advanced age of eighty-two. One of 
Peutinger's principal claims to fame rests on the 
famous chart, known as the Tabula Peutingeriana. 
This interesting geographical monument — supposed 
by some authorities to have been executed at 
Constantinople in 393 by order of the Emperor 
Theodosius, and by others in 435 — was discovered 
by Conrad Celtes in an ancient library at Spires. 
At his death, he bequeathed it to Peutinger, who 
believed it to be the Itinerary of Antoninus ; and 
proposed to publish it for the benefit of lovers of 
antiquity, but did not find time to carry out his 
purpose. It was found in his library by Mark 



NOTES. 169 

Velser, forty years after his death, and printed in 
1598. It has since been several times reproduced, 
especially by Seheyb, in folio, in 1753, and by 
another editor in 1809. The original is now in 
the Library of Vienna. 

Note 19, page 56. 

Laurentius Valla was one of the most accom- 
plished scholars of the early part of the fifteenth 
century, and one of the most efficient and suc- 
cessful promoters of the revival of classical learn- 
ing. He was born at Rome in 1406, where his 
father was Consistorial Advocate to the Holy 
See. He studied Latin under Leonardo d'Arezzo, 
and also acquired a competent knowledge of the 
Greek language; but it was as an elegant and 
accomplished Latinist that he won his greenest 
laurels. Like most of the learned men who took 
a leading part in the great movement of the 
Renaissance, he led a stormy and troubled life, — 
occupied in literary strifes, in attacking his enemies, 
or in replying to their assaults. He first attacked 
Bartolus, a famous jurist, who taught the civil law 
at Pavia — whose followers Hutten frequently stig- 
matizes under the title of Bartolists — principally 
because the barbarous Latin employed by him and 
his pupils offended the delicacy of his classical ear. 
In the piquant pamphlet which he wrote against 



170 NOTES. 

him — which was the work of a single night — he 
designates Bartolus, Baldus, and Accursius as the 
geese who had succeeded to Scaevola, Paulus, and 
Ulpian, the swans of jurisprudence. Valla dis- 
tinguished himself as a teacher in many towns of 
Italy — in Pavia, Milan, Genoa, and Florence. From 
1435 to 1442, he followed the fortunes of Alphonso 
of Arragon, in his wars for the conquest of the 
kingdom of Naples ; and in 1440, he published 
the celebrated work mentioned in the text, under 
the title of ' Declamatio de falsb credita Constantini 
donatione? The pretended donation of Const antine 
was then loudly vaunted by the Holy See, and im- 
plicitly believed in France, Spain, Great Britain, and 
Germany. Valla, however, attacked the obscure 
author of this absurd invention, with the utmost 
violence and indignation; and, with consummate 
skill and marvellous erudition, brought forward an 
irresistible mass of evidence to demonstrate its 
futility and falsehood. But his presumption in 
thus attempting to sap the foundation on which 
rested the temporal power of the Holy See, drew 
down upon him its unsparing and dangerous enmity, 
and he was compelled to fly from Italy. He after- 
wards returned, however, and was well received at 
Naples by King Alphonso, his friend and patron. 
But he soon became involved in another ecclesias- 
tical controversy. He ventured to impugn the 



NOTES. 171 

assertion of a popular preacher, that the Apostles' 
Creed had been composed, clause by clause, by the 
apostles — each apostle, beginning with Peter, suc- 
cessively enunciating a separate clause. The In- 
quisition would have seized him in its fatal grasp 
for thus presuming to controvert the popular belief, 
had it not been for the powerful protection of his 
steady friend, King Alphonso. The work which 
most contributed to the fame of Valla was his 
treatise ' De Elegantia Lingucc Latime? It was the 
favourite text-book during the whole of the six- 
teenth century ; Erasmus always professed the 
greatest admiration for it, and wrote an epitome 
of it for his own use, which was afterwards pub- 
lished. Perhaps the most bitter of the many paper 
wars in which Valla was engaged, was that which 
he waged against Poggio Bracciolini, that famous 
scholar and successful discoverer of ancient classical 
manuscripts. It was disgraced by the virulence 
of the abuse with which the enraged disputants 
profusely bespattered each other. Valla died at 
Naples in 1457, at the age of fifty-two. 

Note 20, page 61. 

It ought not to be forgotten, that Hutten's deci- 
sive attack upon the pretensions of the Papacy was 
made some time before Luther took any determined 
step in the same direction ; and it is interesting to 



172 NOTES. 

observe how the writings of Hutten influenced a 
genius as original and fearless, but more large and 
genial than his own. 

Note 21, page 62. 

Jacques Lefebvre of Etaples, in the diocese of 
Amiens, was born about the middle of the fifteenth 
century. He studied at Paris, and afterwards 
travelled over a great part of Europe, and even 
penetrated, according to some authorities, into 
Asia and Africa. On his return to Paris, he was 
appointed professor in the College of Cardinal 
Lemoine, where he remained until 1507, when he 
was introduced at court. In 1518, he was made 
Bishop of Meaux. He was familiar with the 
languages of classical antiquity, and had a fine and 
critical taste in literature. For the old scholastic 
system he had but little respect. He roused the 
indignation of the Sorbonne by the publication of 
a version of the New Testament with a comment- 
ary. They were especially enraged at the horta- 
tory discourse, in which he recommends the reading 
of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue to all the 
faithful. The favour of Francis I. for a time pro- 
tected him against the malice of Iris enemies ; but 
he was at last obliged to take refuge in Strasburg. 
On his return from his captivity in Madrid, Francis 
appointed Lefebvre preceptor to his third son, 



NOTES. 173 

Charles ; and in this capacity he acquitted him- 
self so well, that the king would have advanced 
him to the highest dignities in the church, had not 
his modesty led him to decline them. He spent his 
latter years with the Queen of Navarre at Nerac, 
and died in 1536. His life was exemplary, and his 
character frank and amiable. 

Note 22, page 62. 

Guillaume Coj) was born at Basle, and prosecuted 
the study of medicine, first in his native town, and 
afterwards in Paris. He was principal physician to 
Louis XII. and Francis I. He was an accomplished 
scholar, and translated several of the writings of 
Hippocrates and Galen from the Greek. He died 
in 1532. His son Nicolas was professor in the 
College of Sainte-Barbe, and in 1533 was elected 
rector of the University of Paris. He was after- 
wards obliged to fly from Paris and take refuge in 
Basle, on account of a sermon which he preached, 
in order to refute the attacks directed by the 
Sorbonne against Marguerite of Navarre, who 
favoured and protected the doctrines and professors 
of Protestantism. This sermon is said to have 
been suggested, if not composed, by Calvin. Rueil 
was a learned physician of Soissons, born in 1497, 
died 1539. He wrote a treatise, i De Natura 
Stirpium? 



174 NOTES. 

Note 23, page 63. 
Count Herman von Nuenar belonged to an an- 
cient and noble German family, and was early im- 
bued with a taste for literature by his relative 
Count Maurice von Spiegelberg, one of the illus- 
trious band of scholars who went forth from the 
conventual seminary of St Agnes, near Zwoll in 
Westphalia, to restore and remodel the learning and 
education of Germany. Count Nuenar was provost 
of the archiepiscopal cathedral at Cologne, the head- 
quarters of the enemies of Reuchlin. Yet he was 
a steady and warm friend to that great man. Like 
Erasmus, he attempted to steer a middle course be- 
tween the Roman Catholic and Protestant parties. 

Note 24, page 66. 

This is but one instance out of many, of what 
was the peculiar and distinguishing characteristic 
cf the genius of Ulrich von Hutten — a fearless, un- 
compromising love of truth and freedom, and an 
intense hatred of falsehood and tyranny. 

Note 25, page 68. 

On earth, that time never arrived for Hutten. 
His whole life was a struggle against religious and 
political abuses, against persecution, desertion, and 
disease; and to none of the great men of that 



NOTES. 175 

t 
momentous sixteenth century would the motto — 

afterwards assumed by Marnix de Sainte Alde- 
gonde, the friend of the famous William the Silent 
— 'Repos ailleurs,' have better applied. But the 
world owes most of the onward impulses which 
have purified and improved it to men ill at ease. 
The happy and the prosperous are too apt to con- 
fine themselves within the ancient limits. 

Note 26, page 73. 

Eoban Hess was born in 1488, in the village of 
Bockendorff in Hesse, of poor parents. He early 
manifested a decided talent for poetry, which was 
assiduously cultivated ; and at Erfurth, where he 
studied, he made the acquaintance, and acquired 
the friendship, of Ulrich von Hutten. This friend- 
ship grew with their years, and continued till the 
close of Hutten's short and brilliant career. They 
laboured together to improve themselves, and to 
enlighten their countrymen. Like Hutten, Hess 
was intended for the law; but for that study he 
showed a decided aversion, and devoted himself to 
philology and poetry. In 1514 he married, and 
soon afterwards was made rector of Erfurth. He 
was a member of the deputation that welcomed 
Luther on his journey to Worms. Pecuniary diffi- 
culties ultimately compelled him to leave Erfurth, 
and he became teacher of the Gymnasium in 



176 NOTES. 

Nuremberg. He afterwards laboured in Marburgh, 
as professor for the diffusion of evangelical doc- 
trine, and died in 1540. A life of him was 
published by Vossius, at Gotha, in 1797. 

Note 27, page 73. 

Sebastian von Rotenhan, a Franconian knight, was 
born in 1478. He was a man of considerable learn- 
ing, and, like his brother knight, Eitelwolf von 
Stein, already mentioned, was fond of the study of 
history and antiquities. During the peasants' war, 
the Bishop of Halbertstadt entrusted him with the 
command of a castle, in which position he so dis- 
tinguished himself, that a monument was erected, 
and a medal struck, in his honour. He travelled 
through many countries in Europe, visited Jeru- 
salem, and was created a knight of the Holy 
Sepulchre. He was at various times entrusted with 
diplomatic negotiations, was a member of the Im- 
perial Chamber at Costnitz, councillor to Albert, 
Archbishop of Mayence, and privy councillor to the 
Emperor Charles Y. He died in 1542, at his castle' 
of Rotweinsdorf. 

Note 28, page 74. 

The translation of the Trias Romana, here given 
by M. Chauffour-Kestner, is a mere summary of that 
searching and powerful satire. The original occu- 



NOTES. 177 

pies seventy-three closely printed octavo pages of 
Miinch's edition of the works of Hutten, printed 
at Berlin, in five volumes, 1821-5. 

Note 29, page 89. 

George of Freundsberg was one of the most cele- 
brated of the German military adventurers of his 
time. He was exceedingly popular among the 
German mercenaries, and played an important part 
in the Italian wars, in which Bourbon and Pescara 
led the armies of Charles V. He commanded the 
German mercenaries at the battle of Pavia ; and, 
in the motley army which Bourbon conducted to 
the sack of Rome in 1527, twelve thousand lanz- 
knechts followed the banners of this daring partisan. 
Freundsberg was an ardent supporter of the Re- 
formed doctrines, and a bitter enemy to the Church 
of Rome. He is said to have carried a silken cord 
in his pocket, for the purpose of strangling the 
Pope, if ever an opportunity presented itself, in a 
manner consistent with the pontifical dignity. 

Note 30, page 93. 

It seems probable that so accomplished a classical 
scholar as Hutten, while penning this indignant 
remonstrance against the tyranny of the Pope, must 
have had in view the famous burst of eloquence in 
which Cicero denounced the cruelties and tyranny 

M 



178 NOTES. 

of Verres : — ' Facinus est vincire civem Eomanum ; 
scelus verberare ; prope parricidium necare : quid dicam 
in crucem toller eV To bind a Roman citizen, is a 
crime ; to scourge him, an infamy; to kill him, almost 
a parricide ; but to crucify him, what shall I call it ? 

Note 31, page 110. 

Jerome Aleander was born in 1480, and was de- 
scended from a noble family in Istria. He possessed 
great talents and learning ; but his passions were 
violent, and his morality was of the laxest descrip- 
tion. His acquaintance with the Hebrew language 
was so accurate and extensive, that it gave colour 
to Luther's allegation, that he was a Jew. He was, 
besides, an accomplished classical scholar, and 
master of several modern languages. In 1508, 
Louis XII. appointed him professor of Philosophy 
in the University of Paris ; and his success in that 
capacity attracted the notice of the papal court, 
ever anxious to appropriate the services of able, 
adroit, and unscrupulous men. In 1519, Pope Leo 
X. conferred upon Aleander the appointment of 
librarian to the Vatican, and in 1520 sent him to 
Germany to encounter, and, if possible, to dissipate 
or avert, the storm which threatened the existence 
of the Papacy. At the Diet of Worms, he under- 
took the accusation of Luther, and made an elabo- 
rate speech against him. 



NOTES. 179 

Note 32, page 112. 

' In the matter of the Inquisition,' says Ranke, 
1 the Pope agreed to make the most important 
concessions. On the 21st October 1520, he de- 
clared to the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, that he 
would give no further encouragement to the de- 
mands of the Cortes of Arragon, that he would not 
confirm the briefs he had issued, and that he would 
introduce no innovation in the affairs of the Inqui- 
sition without the approbation of the Emperor. 
Even this did not satisfy Charles ; he demanded 
the entire revocation of the briefs. On the 12th 
of December, the Pope offered to declare all steps 
that had been taken against the Inquisition null 
and void. On the 16th January 1521, he at 
length actually permitted the Emperor to suppress 
the briefs, and expressed a wish to have them sent 

back to Rome, that he might annul them 

How grievously were the hopes which such men 
as Hutten and Sickingen had placed on the young 
Emperor disappointed ! The papal Bull was exe- 
cuted without hesitation in the Low German here- 
ditary dominions, where the higher clergy and 
confessors seemed to engross all the consideration 
of the court. In January 1521, there was a general 
belief that the Emperor wished to destroy Luther, 
and, if possible, to exterminate his followers.' 



180 NOTES. 

Note 33, page 126. 

The Fuggers were the greatest bankers and 
merchants in Germany, and were, in many respects, 
to Augsburg what the Medici were to Florence, 
though they never attained to the same height of 
political power as their Italian contemporaries. 
Both families sprung from a humble origin: the 
Medici from an apothecary, the Fuggers from a 
weaver. John, who was the founder of the Fuggers, 
lived in the early part of the fourteenth century. 
But the Fuggers alluded to in the text, must have 
been his descendants, Jacques, and his nephews 
Raymond and Anthony. Jacques for many years 
directed the mercantile transactions of the house at 
Venice and Augsburg. At that period, in addition 
to their other business, the Fuggers farmed the 
gold mines in the valley of the Inn, and the silver 
mines of Falkenstein and Schwartz. In a single 
year — 1506 — they made a profit of 175,000 ducats 
from the sale of the merchandise imported by their 
ships from the east. Jacques built the magnificent 
castle of Fuggerau ; and, at the period of his death, 
was knight of the Golden Spur, Count Palatine, 
and Imperial Councillor. His nephew Raymond 
bought the county of Kirchberg from the Emperor, 
for 525,000 florins. He encouraged science and 
literature, and formed a valuable library. Both he 



NOTES. 181 

and his brother, however, seem to have been some- 
what unscrupulous in their business transactions, 
as we find that they were compelled to pay 60,000 
ducats to the Queen of Hungary, in compensation 
for the bad quality of the money which they had 
coined, and with which they had inundated 
Hungary. There appears, therefore, to have been 
some foundation for the accusations brought against 
them in the ' Brigands.'' Raymond and Anthony 
Fugger were often very useful to the Emperor 
Charles V., when he was pressed for money. It is 
related of them, that when that monarch lodged in 
their palace, in passing through Augsburg, they 
lighted the fire in his apartment with an acknow- 
ledgment for 800,000 florins, with the imperial 
signature attached. In return for the munificence 
of the Fuggers, Charles rewarded them with 
many valuable monopolies and privileges, such as 
those of coining money in their towns and lordships, 
and of being exempt from all judicial control, ex- 
cept that of the Emperor himself. Erasmus has 
bestowed the highest praise on the character of 
Anthony Fugger, with whom he was on terms of 
intimate friendship. He appears to have been a 
liberal patron of learning and the fine arts. He 
paid Titian 3000 crowns for works executed at 
Augsburg ; collected the finest library that had 
ever been formed in Germany; and founded and 



182 NOTES. 

endowed many charitable institutions, such as the 
Hospital of Waltenhausen. Yet, at his death, he 
left the enormous fortune of six millions of golden 
crowns, besides plate and jewels, large possessions 
in foreign countries, and factories at Antwerp and 
Venice. This explains the saying of Charles Y., 
who exclaimed, on seeing the royal treasures at 
Paris, ' I have a single weaver in Augsburg, who 
could buy all this and pay for it with his own money.' 

Note 34, page 130. 

Rabulists — from the Latin rabula, a pettifogger, a 
noisy, wrangling advocate — is a term of reproach 
applied to those advocates who took advantage of 
their position for their own profit, instead of look- 
ing to the benefit of their clients, and who tried to 
deafen the judge, or overwhelm their opponents, by 
unnecessary clamour and violence. 

Note 35, page 138. 

John ZisJca von Trocznow had lost an eye in child- 
hood, whence he was surnamed Ziska, or the one- 
eyed. His sister, who was a nun, had been seduced 
by a priest; and this circumstance inspired him 
with the utmost hatred of the whole body of the 
priesthood. The doctrines of Huss, in spite of the 
murder of that Eeformer in 1415, had spread 
rapidly throughout Bohemia ; and Ziska put himself 



NOTES. 183 

at the head of the movement, and gained repeated 
victories over the Imperialists and the Emperor 
Sigismund, who endeavoured to suppress it by force 
of arms. He lost his remaining eye at the siege of 
the castle of Raby ; but still continued to lead his 
troops, and gain victories as before, in spite of his 
blindness. He died in October 1424, while advanc- 
ing to invade Moravia. In person, Ziska was short 
and broad-shouldered, with a large, round, bald 
head. His forehead was deeply furrowed, and he 
wore long, fiery-red moustaches. After the loss of 
his eyes, he always rode in a carriage close to the 
great standard of the Hussite army. Knox probably 
borrowed his famous saying, ' That the best way to 
keep the rooks from returning, was to pull down 
their nests,' from that attributed in the text to the 
great general of the Hussites. 

• Note 36, page 139. 

The following is the picture drawn by Menzel, in 
his History of Germany, of the state of the country 
at the close of the Thirty Years' War, which was ter- 
minated in 1648 by the Peace of Westphalia. ' Ger- 
many is reckoned by some to have lost one-half, 
by others two-thirds, of her entire population dur- 
ing the Thirty Years' War. In Saxony, 900,000 
men had fallen within two years ; in Bohemia, the 
number of inhabitants, at the demise of Ferdinand 



184 NOTES. 

II., before the last deplorable inroads made by 
Banner and Tortenson, had sunk to one-fourth. 
Augsburg, instead of eighty, had eighteen thousand 
inhabitants. Every province, every town through- 
out the Empire, had suffered at an equal ratio, with 
the exception of the Tyrol, which had repulsed the 
enemy from her frontiers, and had enjoyed the 
deepest peace during this period of horror. The 
country was completely impoverished. The work- 
ing class had almost totally disappeared. The 
manufactories had been destroyed by fire, industry 
and commerce had passed into other hands. The 
products of Upper Germany were far inferior to 
those of Italy and Switzerland, those of Lower 
Germany to those of Holland and England. Im- 
mense provinces, once flourishing and populous, lay 
entirely waste and uninhabited, and were only by 
slow degrees repeopled by foreign emigrants, or 
by soldiery. The original character and language 
of the inhabitants were, by this means, completely 
altered. In Franconia, which, owing to her central 
position, had been traversed by every party during 
the war, the misery and depopulation had risen to 
such a pitch, that the Franconian Estates, with the 
assent of the ecclesiastical princes, abolished (a.d. 
1650) the celibacy of the Catholic clergy, and per- 
mitted each man to marry two wives, on account of 
the numerical superiority of the women over the 



NOTES. 185 

men. The last remains of political liberty had, 
during the war, also been snatched from the people ; 
each of the Estates had been deprived of the whole 
of its material power. The nobility were compelled 
by necessity to enter the service of the princes, 
the citizens were impoverished and powerless, the 
peasantry had been utterly demoralized by military 
rule and reduced to servitude. The provincial 
Estates, weakly guarded by the Crown against the 
encroachments of the petty princes, were completely 
at the mercy of the more powerful of the petty 
sovereigns of Germany, and had universally sunk 
in importance. Science and art had fled from 
Germany, and pedantic ignorance had replaced the 
deep learning of her universities. The mother tongue 
had become adulterated by an incredible variety 
of Spanish, Italian, and French words, and the use 
of foreign words with German terminations was 
considered the highest work of elegance. Yarious 
foreign modes of dress were also as generally adopted. 
Germany had lost all, save her hopes for the future.' 

Note 37, page 141. 
Well might the peasantry of that time regard 
with suspicion and detestation, anything that was 
likely to perpetuate and strengthen the crushing 
yoke of their feudal superiors, which is thus 
graphically described by M. Audin in his Histoire de 



186 NOTES. 

Luther. ' It was indeed a heavy oppression. At 
the death of the master of the family, the lord in- 
herited his best pair of oxen ; on that of the 
mistress, her best suit of clothes. This was the 
right of Toclfall Every peasant who changed 
masters, was obliged to pay a fine to the one he was 
leaving, the Lehnsclielling. The finest bundle of 
wheat, the finest bunch of grapes, the finest fruits of 
his garden, the finest honey from his bees, all be- 
longed to the lord. On Shrove Tuesday, he was 
bound to present him with a pig ; on St Martin's 
day, with a couple of geese ; at Michaelmas, with a 
couple of fowls. The temporal or spiritual lord 
treated his peasants like veritable slaves ; body and 
mind, they were wholly subject to him; if he 
changed his religion, the vassal was compelled to go 
over with him to the new faith. With these were 
coupled the exactions of the priesthood, often as 
cruel and oppressive as those of the temporal lord.' 

Note 38, page 147. 

Dr Strauss places the date of Hutten's death a 
year earlier. According to him, he died towards 
the end of August or the beginning of September 
1523, at the age of 35 years and 4 months. 



INDEX 



Accursius, and his followers denounced 
by Hutten, 69. 

vEsticampianus, Ragius, a successful 
teacher of classical literature in the 
University of Cologne, 20 ; Ulrich 
von Hutten pursues his studies un- 
der his superintendence, ib. ; is ex- 
pelled from the University as an in- 
novator, and as a corrupter of youth, 
by the theologians of Cologne, 21 ; 
heandHutten repair to the University 
founded at Frankfort-on-the-Oder 
by the Margrave of Brandenburg, ib. 

Aleander, Jerome, the Papal Legate 
at the Diet of Worms, 111 ; his great 
abilities and unscrupulous character, 
ib. ; obtains the Edict of Worms, 
condemning Luther and his ad- 
herents, by cunning and prompti- 
tude, 119-121 ; is assailed by Hutten 
in a violent pamphlet, 122 ; biogra- 
phical notice of, 178, 179. 

Audin, M., account given by him in his 
Histoire de Luther of the intolerable 
oppression of the German peasantry 
by their feudal superiors, at the time 
of the Reformation, 185, 186. 

Augsburg, Hutten attends the Diet of, 
in the suite of the Archbishop of 
Mayence, 65. 

Bartholists, attacked by Hutten, 69. 
Bayard, the Chevalier, compels Sickin- 

gen to raise the siege of Mezieres, 136. 
Brigands, the, a dialogue published by 

Hutten in 1521, 122 ; quotations 

from, 126-133. 
Budseus, his praise of the character 

of Hutten, 27 ; is termed by Hutten 

the most learned of French nobles, 

the most noble of learned men, 69 ; 

biographical notice of, 153-155. 
Bull, the, a dialogue published by 

Hutten in 1521, 122. 
Buschius, Hermannus, one of the au- 



thors of the Epistolse Obscurorum 
Virorum, 166. 

Carlstadt, assailed by Eck, 68. 

Charles V. appears likely to be hostile 
to the Pope, who had exerted him- 
self to forward the claims of Francis 
I., his rival for the Empire, 70 ; 
elected Emperor, and first visit to the 
Empire, 88, 89 ; his profoundly cal- 
culating genius, 89 ; requested by the 
Pope to put Hutten to the ban of the 
Empire, 90; letter addressed to, by 
Hutten, 93-95 ; policy pursued to- 
wards, by the papal court, previously 
to, and during, the Diet of Worms, 
110-122 ; makes overtures to Sickin- 
gen and Hutten, in order to induce 
them to attack Francis I., 135. 

Cochlseus, his statement with regard to 
the effect produced in Germany by 
the publication of the Trias Romana, 
82. 

Cologne, University of, 19 ; scholastic 
system prevalent there, 20 ; Hutten's 
dislike to it, ib. ; R. iEsticanrpianus 
expelled as an innovator, 21 ; theo- 
logians of, range themselves on the 
side of Hochstraten, the chief inqui- 
sitor of Cologne, in his attack on 
Reuchlin and the Humanists, 39. 

Copp, Hutten makes his acquaintance 
during a visit to Paris 62 ; an emi- 
nent physician, 69 ; notice of, 173. 

Eck, John, assails some of the prin- 
cipal Reformers, 68, 69 ; advises 
Charles V. at once to publish the 
Edict of Worms against Luther and 
his adherents, without waiting for 
the decision of the Diet, 113. 

Ehrenhold, a friend of Hutten, and one 
of the interlocutors in the Trias 
Romana, 74. 

Eoban Hess, a friend of Hutten, 73 ; 



188 



INDEX. 



letter to him from Hutten re- 
garding the Trias Romana, ib.; his 
deep regret for Hutten's premature 
death, and his admirable summary 
of his character, 147 ; biographical 
notice of, 175, 176. 

Epistolse Obscurorum Virorum, published 
during the controversy between the 
Scholastics and the Humanists, 44 ; 
contain a most cutting exposure 
of the vices of the monastic orders, 
and the corruptions of the Papacy, 45 ; 
Herder's opinion of them, ib. ; the most 
perfect satire in the German lan- 
guage, 46 ; partial resemblance to the 
Menippee of Voltaire, ib. ; impossi- 
bility of translating them, 47 and 165 ; 
authorship imputed to Keuchlin and 
to Erasmus, 47 ; but the greater part 
written by Hutten, 48 ; inconsistent 
conduct of Erasmus with regard to, 
ib. ; Sir William Hamilton's descrip- 
tion of them, 163 ; curious anecdotes 
regarding, 163-165. 

Erasmus, his desertion of Hutten and 
love of tranquillity, 28 ; letter to, 
from Sir Thomas More, regarding 
the Epistolse Obscurorum Virorum, 
46 ; applauds them while in manu- 
script, but abuses them when pub- 
lished, fearing to be taken for their 
author, 48 ; dastardly conduct to Hut- 
ten when proscribed and dying, 
144-146 ; the type of vastness of intel- 
lect and feebleness of character, 155. 

Ferdinand, brother of Charles V., 
Hutten dedicates to him a work 
against Pope Gregory VII., 70 ; he 
holds his court in Brabant, 88 ; to 
which Hutten repairs, but is obliged 
to fly from the attempts made against 
his life at the instigation of the 
papal legates, 88, 89. 

Franconian nobility, the, considered 
the most perfect type of German 
chivalry, 15 ; form a kind of noble 
democracy, 16. 

Freundsberg, George of, a Lutheran 
partisan leader, 89 ; notice of, 177. 

Fuggers, the, great merchants of Augs- 
burg, 126 ; account of the family, 
180-182. 

Fulda, Abbey of, its celebrated school, 
17, 18 ; Hutten pursues his early 
studies there, ib. ; flies from it in 
order to avoid being compelled to 



embrace a monastic life, 19 ; finds in 
the library of the abbey the work of 
Valla on the pretended donation of 
Constantine to the Holy See, 59 ; 
finds also a work against Pope Gre- 
gory VII., 70. 

Glapio,conf essor of the Emperor Charles 
V., sent by the Emperor to Sickingen 
and Hutten to enlist them against 
Francis L, 135 ; his portrait by 
Hutten, 135, 136. 

Gratus, Ortuinus, one of the chief per- 
secutors of Keuchlin, 45 ; and one of 
the principal victims of the satire of 
the Epistolse Obscurorum Virorum, ib. ; 
notice of, 162. 

Herder, his opinion of the Epistolse Ob- 
scurorum Virorum, 45. 

Hesse, Elector of, compels Sickingen 
to raise the siege of Treves, 142. 

Hochstraten, attempts to procure from 
the Emperor Maximilian an order to 
burn all the Jewish books, 39 ; his 
controversy with Eeuchlin, 40, 41 ; 
his portrait by Hutten, 42 ; notice of, 
162. 

Humanists, the, struggle between them 
and the Scholastics, 37-49. 

Huss, justification of, by Hutten, 103, 
104. 

Hutten, Hans von, cousin of Ulrich, 
enters the service of the Duke of 
Wurtemburg, 29; marries the daugh- 
ter of the Marshal of Wurtemburg, 
ib. ; the Duke becomes enamoured 
of his wife, ib. ; assassinated by the 
Duke at a hunting party, 30. 

Hutten, Louis von, father of the pre- 
ceding, 28. 

Hutten, Ulrich von, born of an ancient 
and noble Franconian family, 15 ; 
education at the school of the Abbey 
of Fulda, 17-19 ; dislike of a monastic 
life, and flight from the Abbey of 
Fulda and from his family when only 
16 years of age, 18, 19 ; studies at the 
University of Cologne under K. 
vEsticanipianus, 19 ; fondness for 
classical literature, 20 ; appointed 
one of the first masters in the new 
University of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, 
21 ; early travels, 22 ; first journey 
to Italy, 23 ; composes a poem in 
honour of his patron the Archbishop 
of Mayence, 24 ; attempts to obviate 



INDEX. 



189 



the prejudices of the German no- 
bility against literary pursuits, 24 ; 
his estimate of nobility, 25 ; personal 
appearance and character, 27 ; in- 
dignation and grief on learning the 
assassination of his cousin Hans von 
Hutten, 31 ; attacks the assassin, the 
Duke of Wurtemburg, in five ora- 
tions and in various other writings, 
31-37 ; celebrates the victory of tbe 
Humanists over the Scholastics in 
the Triumphus Capnionis, 42-44 ; 
Epistolx Obscurorum Virorum, 44; 
character of that famous satire, 44- 
47 ; the greater part pf it written by 
Hutten, 47, 48 ; contempt of Hutten's 
warlike relations for his poetical 
skill and classical learning, 49 ; tliey 
wish him to become Doctor of Laws, 
50 ; he sets out on a second journey 
to Italy in order to acquire that title, 
51 ; beholds at Borne the manifold 
corruptions of the Papacy, 53 ; his 
indignation at the contempt with 
which Germany is viewed by the 
Italians, 54 ; his successful duel, 
single-handed, against five French- 
men who had scoffed at the Em- 
peror Maximilian, 54, 55; obliged 
to leave Italy without obtaining the 
title of Doctor of Laws, 55 ; is 
knighted by the Emperor Maximi- 
lian, and crowned with laurel as Im- 
perial Poet and Orator, ib. ; publishes 
the work of L. Valla on the pre- 
tended donation of Constantine to 
the Holy See, 56; dedicates it to 
Pope Leo X., 59 ; strong impression 
produced by that work, especially on 
the mind of Luther, 61 ; makes a 
journey to Paris on business of the 
Archbishop of Mayence, 62 ; acquires 
the friendship of Lefebvre, Budseus, 
Copp, and Beuil, ib. ; letter to Count 
Nuenar, 63 ; effect of his writings on 
the development of Luther's views 
regarding the Papacy, 64, 65 ; attacks 
the Papacy before Luther takes any 
step in the same direction, 65 ; 
accompanies the Archbishop of May- 
ence to the Diet of Augsburg, ib. ; 
letter to Pirckheimer on the degrada- 
tion of Germany, 66 ; publishes a 
discourse on the necessity of defend- 
ing Christendom against the Turks, 
and dedicates it to all the freemen of 
Germany, 66, 67 ; his dislike of court 



life, 67; letter to Pirckheimer, 67- 
69 ; serves in the army that chases 
the Duke of Wurtemburg from his 
dominions, 70 ; publishes a work 
against Pope Gregory VII., and 
dedicates it to Prince Ferdinand, ib. ; 
extensive correspondence, ib. ; his 
famous motto — alea jacta est, 71 ; 
ardour of faith visible in the preface 
to his work against Pope Gregory 
VII., ib. ; affectionate care for his 
family, 72 ; his desire for repose and 
for the company of an amiable and 
accomplished wife, expressed in a 
letter to Piscator, 72, 73 ; the Trias 
Romana, 73 ; summary of that terrible 
attack upon the corruptions of Borne, 
74-82 ; its immense popularity 
throughout Germany, 82 ; publishes 
several letters, written towards the 
close of the fourteenth century, 
showing the freedom with which the 
ancient universities discussed the 
pretensions of the Papacy, 82, 83 ; 
allies himself closely with Luther, 
recognises in him the head of the 
Beformation, and offers him a secure 
asylum with Sickingen, 84, 85 ; letter 
to Luther, 85-87 ; visits the court of 
Ferdinand, but is obliged to fly from 
the attempts on his life instigated by 
the papal legates, 88, 89 ; the Pope 
Avrites to several of the German 
princes, and especially to the Arch- 
bishop of Mayence, requiring them 
to seize Hutten and to send him 
prisoner to Borne, 89, 90 ; requests 
the Emperor to put Hutten to the 
ban of the Empire, 90 ; his friends in 
general desert him, but Sickingen 
offers him a secure retreat in the 
impregnable castle of Ebernburg, 90 ; 
his letter to. the Archbishop of May- 
ence, 90, 91 ; to the knight of Boten- 
han, 91, 92 ; to the Emperor Charles 
V, 93, 94 ; to the Elector Frederick 
of Saxony, 95-100 ; despairs of in- 
ducing the Emperor and the princes 
to declare against the Pope, and 
addresses himself to the people of 
Germany, 100, 101 ; his first poem in 
German, 101-105 ; translates the 
Trias Romano, into German, and 
dedicates it to Sickingen, 105-107; 
his relations with Luther become 
more intimate, 107 ; his letter to 
Luther, written in the beginning of 



190 



INDEX. 



1521, 108-110 ; publishes a pamphlet 
attacking Aleander, the papal legate 
at the Diet of Worms, 122 ; publishes 
the Bull, the First Monitor, the 
Second Monitor, and the Brigands, 
ib. ; quotations from the Second 
Monitor, 123-125; from the Brigands, 
126-183 ; the Emperor sends his con- 
fessor Glapio to Hutten and Sickin- 
gen, 135 ; publication of the dialogue 
entitled the New Karsthans, 137 ; the 
war against the Archbishop of 
Treves, 140, 141 ; defeat of Sickingen 
and Hutten, 142-144 ; Hutten takes 
refuge in Basle, 144 ; is warmly 
received, except by Erasmus, who 
keeps aloof from him, 144 ; is com- 
pelled to leave Basle by the intrigues 
of the Bishop, 145 ; repairs to Mul- 
hausen, and assists at the solemn 
suppression of the papal power in 
that town, ib. ; dastardly attack upon 
him by Erasmus, ib. ; he replies to it 
in a violent pamphlet, 145, 146; 
compelled by a disturbance to leave 
Mulhausen and take refuge at Zurich 
beside Zwingle, 146 ; letter to Eoban 
Hess, ib. ; finds a last resting-place 
on the green island of Uffnau in the 
Lake of Zurich, where he dies in his 
36th year, 147 and 186 ; summary of 
his character by Eoban Hess, 147. 

Karsthans, the new, a dialogue writ- 
ten by Hutten, 137, 138. 

Lefebvre or Faber, Hutten acquires 
his friendship during a visit to Paris, 
62 ; his eminence in philosophy, 69 ; 
biographical sketch of, 172, 173. 

Luther, effect produced on his mind by 
Hutten's publication of the work of 
L. Valla on the donation of Constan- 
tine, 61 ; his observations on that 
work, ib. ; effect of Hutten's writings 
on the development of Luther's views 
respecting the Papacy, 64, 65 ; Hutten 
writes to offer him a secure asylum 
with Sickingen, 65 ; letter to, from 
Hutten, in June 1520, 85-87; his 
remarks on Hutten's letter to the 
Elector of Saxony, 100 ; relations be- 
tween him and Hutten become more 
intimate, 107 ; letter to him from 
Hutten, 108-110 ; his heroic conduct 
at the Diet of Worms, 114-118 ; put 
to the ban of the Empire bv the Edict 



of Worms, and his writings con- 
demned to be burnt, 121 ; refuses to 
have anything to do with the war of 
the lesser nobility against the princes, 
141. 

Maximilian, the Emperor, the theolo- 
gians of Cologne attempt to prove 
that all the Jewish books are danger- 
ous and heretical, and demand from 
him an order to burn them, 39 ; 
knights Hutten, and bestows upon 
him the title of Imperial Poet and 
Orator, 55. 

Mayence, Archbishop of, becomes the 
friend and patron of Hutten, 24; 
consults Eeuchlin about burning the 
Hebrew books, 40 ; suffers from the 
rapacity of the Eomish court, 61 ; 
an enemy to Luther, 62 ; attends the 
Diet of Augsburg, to which Hutten 
accompanies him, 65 ; at the instiga- 
tion of the Pope, prohibits the read- 
ing of Hutten's works under pain of 
excommunication, 84 ; required by 
the Pope to seize Hutten and send 
him a prisoner to Eome, 89, 90 ; let- 
ter to, from Hutten, 90, $1. 

Meiners, 0., his account of the Trias 
Romana, 74. 

Melancthon, unfeeling letter of Eras- 
mus to, after the death of Hutten, 
144, 145 ; his regret for Hutten's 
death, 147. 

Menzel, his account of the lamentable 
state of Germany at the close of the 
long wars of religion in 1 648, 183-185. 

Monitor, the First, a dialogue published 
by Hutten in 1521, 122. 

Momtor, the Second, a dialogue pub- 
lished by Hutten in 1521, 122; quo- 
tations from, 123-125. 

Nuenar, Count Herman von, letter to 
him from Hutten, 63, 64 ; biographi- 
cal notice of, 174. 

CEcolampadius, is compelled, along 
with Hutten, to take refuge in Swit- 
zerland, after the defeat of Sickin- 
gen, 144. * 

Palatine, Count, compels Sickingen to 
raise the siege of Treves, 142. 

Peutinger, Conrad, biographical sketch 
of, 167-169. 

Peutinger, Constance, called the Pearl 



INDEX. 



191 



of Augsburg, places the laurel 
crown of Imperial Poet and Orator 
on the brows of Hutten, 55. 

Pfefferkorn, a converted Jew, accuses 
his co-religionists of insulting Chris- 
tianity, 39. 

Pirckheimer, Bilibald, letter to him 
from Hutten, describing the hard- 
ships of his first journey to Italy, 23 ; 
another letter from Hutten on the de- 
gradation of Germany, 66; a third 
letter, 67, 68 ; biographical notice of, 
152, 153. 

Piscator, letter from Hutten to, ex- 
pi-essing his desire for repose and for 
the society of an amiable and ac- 
complished wife, 72, 73. 

Princes, the German, opposed to the 
Eeformation, as adverse to the con- 
stitution of principalities, and to the 
continuance of the oligarchy which 
they were desirous of establishing, 
133, 134 ; they aim at the ruin of the 
lesser nobility, 134. 

Rabulists, attacked by Hutten in his 
dialogue of the Brigands, 130, 131; 
explanation of the term, 182. 

Keuchlin, John, gives the signal for 
the strife between the Scholastics and 
the Humanists 38 ; his great and 
various learning, 38, 39 ; his memo- 
rial to the Archbishop of Mayence — 
who had consulted him about the 
burning of the Jewish books — at- 
tacked by the theologians of Cologne, 
40 ; his reply to their attack is 
burned, ib. ; he writes a second, and 
is cited to appear before the Inquisi- 
tion, ib. ; triumph of Keuchlin and 
the Humanists, 41 ; the Dominicans 
at length procure his condemnation 
by the Pope, but are compelled by 
Sickingen to promise not to molest 
him, 49 ; death of Keuchlin, ib. ; Sir 
William Hamilton's estimate of his 
character-, 160-162 ; Frederick Schle- 
gel's, 162. 

Reuil, his eminence as a physician, 
69 ; notice of, 173. 

Kotenhan, Sebastian von, Hutten dedi- 
cates to him the Trias Romana, 73 ; 
biographical notice of, 176. 

Rubianus, Crotus, an early friend and 
fellow -student of Hutten, 18 ; joins 
Hutten at Cologne, 19 ; his grief for 
the death of Hutten, 147 ; one of the 



authors of the Epistolse Obscurorum 
Virorum, 151. 

Scholastics, struggle between them and 
the Humanists, 37-49. 

Sickingen, Franz von, commands the 
army which in 1519 drove the Duke 
of Wurtemburg from his dominions, 
36 ; contracts an intimate friendship 
with Hutten during that campaign, 
ib. ; his favour at the court of Charles 
V., 88 ; the most brilliant represen- 
tative of German chivalry, ib. ; offers 
Hutten a secure asylum in his castle 
of Ebernburg, 90 ; transmits Hut- 
ten's letter to the Emperor, who pro- 
mises that Hutten shall not be 
condemned unheard, 95 ; Hutten 
dedicates to him the German ver- 
sion of the Trias Romana and some 
of his other dialogues, 105-107 ; 
one of the chief interlocutors in the 
second Monitor, 122-125 ; and in the 
Brigands, 126-133 ; the Emperor tries 
to induce him to attack Francis L, 
135 ; he raises an army and invades 
France, 136 ; is repulsed by Bayard, 
and compelled to raise the siege of 
Mezieres, ib. ; the Rhenish knights 
and lesser nobility assembled at Lan- 
dau, elect him for their leader, 136, 
137; he attacks the Archbishop of 
Treves, 141, 142 ; the auxiliary 
troops that he expects are crushed 
before they can join him, and he 
is compelled to raise the siege of 
Treves by the advance of the Elec- 
tor of Hesse and the Count Palatine, 
142 ; he shuts himself up in the 
strong fortress of Landstuhl, which 
is besieged and destroyed by the 
army of the princes, 143 ; Sickingen 
himself is mortally wounded and 
compelled to surrender, ib. ; his 
death, 143, 144 ; biographical sketch 
of him, 156-160. 

Spires, Bishop of, condemns the ac- 
cusers of Keuchlin, 41. 

Spalatin, Luther sends him Hutten's 
letter to the Elector of Saxony, 100. 

Steckelberg, Castle of, the residence of 
the Huttens, 16 ; description of, 16, 17. 

Stein, Eitelwolf von, an early friend 
and patron of Hutten, 18 ; recom- 
mends him to the notice of the Arch- 
bishop of Mayence, 23, 24 ; his death, 
28 ; biographical notice of, 151, 152. 



192 



INDEX. 



Strauss, Dr Friederich, his excellent 
Life of Hutten, 165 ; differs from 
M. Chauffour-Kestner as to the date 
and circumstances of Hutten's coro- 
nation as Poet and Orator, 167 ; and 
also as to the date of his death, 186. 

Tetzel, the writings of Hutten make him 
detested throughout Germany, 65. 

Treves, Archbishop of, attacked by 
Sickingen, 141, 142 ; he defeats 
Sickingen, destroys the castles of his 
partisans, and finally shuts him up 
in the fortress of Landstuhl, where 
he is mortally wounded and com- 
pelled to surrender, 142, 143 ; last 
interview between him and Sickin- 
gen, 143, 144. 

Trias Romana, a terrible attack on the 
Papacy, written by Hutten in Latin, 
and afterwards translated into Ger- 
man, 73 ; summary of, 74-82 ; produces 
an immense effect in Germany, 82. 

Tunger, one of the chief persecutors of 
Eeuchlin, 45 ; his pamphlet against 
him, 162, 163. 

Valla, Laurentius, Hutten discovers 
and publishes his work upon the 
pretended donation of Constantine to 



the Holy See, 56 ; biographical 
notice of, 169-171. 

Worms, Diet of, 110-120 ; Edict of, ob- 
tained by cunning and promptitude, 
119-121. 

Wurtemburg, Duke of, importance of 
the services rendered him by the 
Huttens, 28 ; takes Hans von Hut- 
ten into his service, 29 ; becomes 
enamoured of Hans' wife, ib. ; assas- 
sinates Hans with his own hand 
during a hunting party, and after- 
wards lives openly with his widow, 
30, 31 ; is put to the ban of the Em- 
pire, and driven from his dominions 
by an army, in which Ulrich von 
Hutten served, and which was com- 
manded by Sickingen, 36 ; notice re- 
garding, 155, 156. 

Ziska, John, defence of, by Hutten, in 
the Second Monitor, 123; allusion to, 
in the New Karsthans, 138 ; notice of, 
182, 183. 

Zwingli, Ulrich, his commendation of 
the character of Hutten, 27 and 146 ; 
affords Hutten an asylum at Zurich, 
146; sends him to the island of 
Uffnau, 147. 




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